


As A Circling Bird

by AstridContraMundum



Series: After-comers Cannot Guess [3]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canticle, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Morse stays with the Thursdays, PTSD, Period-Typical Homophobia, Unintentional drug use, and Domestic Fluff ensues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-07-25 14:50:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 92,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16199771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum
Summary: When Max DeBryn came home that afternoon, the last thing he expected to find was Endeavour Morse asleep in his living room.Three years after Blenheim Vale, Endeavour returns to the CID to pick up the pieces.An After the Bacchanal AU remix of CANTICLE





	1. Chapter 1

 

On the last occasion that Dr. DeBryn ever saw DC Morse, he didn’t recognize him. He walked right past him, in fact.

He never would have imagined that would be possible.

But there it was.

 

For months, he had listened for it—for that light step tinged with just a hint of hesitancy, one that varied in proportion to the grisliness of the crime scene.

And for months he had been disappointed.

He had stopped by the Cowley CID as often as he could find a decent excuse to do so, but the desk in the corner remained empty, the typewriter silent, a black armored dragon looking oddly forlorn without its blue-eyed knight sitting opposite, attempting to do battle with the thing.

Thursday’s face seemed to grow grimmer as the months passed—or was that just his imagination? Certainly, he had not imagined Thursday’s stony expression when he had overheard Jakes blithely comment, “He’s free and over twenty-one, what business is it of ours where he’s gone off too? What can you do you expect? Prison changes a man.”

There could be little doubt as to whom he was referring.

And then, one day, as he was examining the body of a man found drowned in Lake Silence, Sergeant Strange suddenly confided in him. “You’ll never guess who the old man and I ran into when we were out running inquiries about this bloke,” he said. “Morse. He’s been running around with some posh set, turns out.”

“Oh?” DeBryn said.

“I think the old man has gone up to see him today, to try to talk with him. He has some idea that he might convince him to come back. Hate to see him get his hopes up, though.”

“Why is that?” DeBryn asked, his face impassive but his heart racing at this new, unexpected information.

Strange huffed a laugh. “He basically told us to go to hell. Nearly tore my head off when I asked him how it was.”  

“’It?’ DeBryn asked. “’Do you mean prison, ‘it’?’”

“Yeah,” Strange confirmed. “Tore me up a good one and ran out of the room like he was on fire, he did.”

“Indeed,” DeBryn said.

********

It could make for a lonely life, working with the dead.

Even in the midst of the living— the police officers whom he worked alongside of day after day— the perceived ghoulishness of his profession marked him somewhat, set him apart. To many of the constables, he was hardly a person at all—he was merely a resource to consult.

 

Morse, though, had been different. When the sheer stupidity of some of the officers had DeBryn’s patience teetering dangerously near the breaking point, Morse’s sympathetic blue gaze made yet another day seem bearable.

And Morse had always smiled, a wan twitch of a smile, but there nonetheless, at the acerbic comments DeBryn had made in response to those said officers.

 

It may seem morbid— and DeBryn certainly never crossed the line of showing disrespect toward his patients—but sometimes, when one was constantly faced with the worst humanity had to offer, a dash of dark humor was the only refuge against a long, slow slide into a pit of despair. Morse, it seemed, had always understood that.

 

He had been a puzzle, certainly—well-read, soft-spoken, a wide-eyed young man who fainted into the arms of his governor during that first autopsy—an episode that was not particularly indicative of a promising career as a detective, but was a refreshing reaction, nonetheless—especially when compared to the crass comments one often heard from some of the young constables in such circumstances.

 

And there was a light about Morse—he seemed to approach each case as not just another case—but as yet one more chance to see justice done. He was the champion of the underdog, utterly incorruptible.

It saddened him to think that what he had loved in Morse might exist no more.

No wonder the chap had been angry when Strange had asked him about his time in prison as if he had been off on holiday in Mallorca. How might the experience have affected someone like Morse, with his low, soft voice and quiet temperament? It seemed inevitable that Morse might come out from such a place hardened, disillusioned—his pure, shining light doused for good.

He closed his eyes at the thought. There was so little of beauty in DeBryn’s working life, and Morse had always had that: the large blue eyes, the high cheekbones begging to be traced with one gentle finger, the wavy hair that looked as if it would be bewitchingly soft to the touch. The slender, elegant frame that even his cheap suits could not hide.

DeBryn understood that, in many ways, he scarcely knew Morse——he didn’t even know the fellow’s Christian name, for pity’s sake. He understood that he might be guilty of making him into something other than what he really was.

A pleasant daydream does not, after all, capture all the facets and complexities of a living man.

But considering the violence and cruelty and bloodshed he was immersed in, literally up to his elbows every day, was it so terrible for him to take refuge in what beauty he could find?

And now, that, too was gone from his life. And possibly, from the world.

 

*****

DeBryn was just preparing to go off shift when the call came in: a dead body out at one of the large estates on Lake Silence. Probable suicide.

He pulled his Morris up in front of a stone house that was not a house so much as a palace, with rows of hundreds of windows gleaming in the moonlight.  A crowd of partygoers in evening suits and jeweled-toned gowns had spilled out into the cool summer night—some were giving statements to officers, some, cleared to leave, were stumbling into cars, looking slightly disoriented.

On the walkway that led up to the sweeping steps of the house, a constable stood, idly tossing away the end of a cigarette. Perhaps he could point him in the right direction.

“Constable?”

“Doctor,” the man replied. “Got us a right little drama here tonight.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Yeah. Effing unbelievable. How I heard it is: some madwoman busted into the party with a gun, trying to get her former fiancé to run away with her. And get this: she’s angry—right?—jealous because she’s heard he’s turned fairy, that he’s forgotten all about her, that he’s getting ready to leave the country with some moneybags. So the woman’s husband tries to calm her down, right? Then, at some point, the husband gets hold of the fairy and has got the gun to his head. But then, what does he do? Get rid of the competition? No. He makes some speech in Latin or Greek or somewhat, and blows his _own_ brains out. The whole lot of them belong in the madhouse, if you ask me. These poshies have too much goddamn time on their hands, if you ask me.”

“I see,” DeBryn said.

Well. A tale of heartbreak and suicide told with all the sensitivity of a rusted dagger. It was just times such as these that he wished Morse were there, to look endearingly but snobbishly affronted by the fellow.

Just then, man in a well-cut evening suit with an air of quiet authority came out of the front door, stepping into the night.

“That’s the man what owns this place,” the constable supplied. “He can show you the way.”

As DeBryn approached the door, the man introduced himself as Joss Bixby, and confirmed that he was, indeed, the owner of the house. He had smooth dark hair, warm dark eyes and a warm, polished voice. It was a face made for laughter, and the poor chap looked slightly out of his element, as if he had never expected his hosting duties for the night to have taken such a macabre turn.

Bixby led him to the scene. On the way to the body, they passed a group who sat huddled together—DeBryn supposed idly that they must be the major players in the night’s drama. A blonde woman in a white evening dress, her face hidden in her hands; an elegant dark-haired young woman with tear tracks staining her beautiful face; a dapper, slight man, taking a drag on his cigarette as if to pull himself together; and a slender man with unruly red-gold hair, who sat looking down, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. They all of them looked young and beautiful and wealthy—but that, as DeBryn saw all too often, was no guarantee of finding happiness in this world.

The remains of the party lay scattered across the floor, the last bit of magic dust turning to ash—burst balloons and glitter and broken glass—and splatters of blood and a body in the middle of the shining, polished wood floor.

Bixby left DeBryn with the body and an attending constable and went to rejoin the dejected group of revelers—the last ones standing, one might say, although none of them seemed up to it at the moment.

The constable informed DeBryn that the man was named Henry Winter. Aged 30. DeBryn looked him over. He was tall, with powerfully built shoulders, and wore glasses, evidently, thicker than DeBryn’s—although now they lay a few feet away amidst pieces of the man’s brain matter.

The constable confirmed his colleague’s story: apparently, the man had ended his life with a single shot to the head, right in the middle of the party. His wife had come in with a gun, he was told, trying to get back her former fiancé, who had taken up with some other man. It was a love triangle-- or quadrilateral, rather.

Well. There was no telling what mischief that the human heart could get up to.

The body had been moved—DeBryn noticed this at once. The attending constable explained that it had been somewhat, that Winter had fallen on the man who he had been holding at gunpoint—his wife’s former fiancé—that the man, disoriented by the blast, had rolled it away, trying to break free.

It was a sad thing, that young people with so many advantages should have such a talent for making themselves miserable.

He couldn’t help but take another look at the little group in wonderment, when he saw that Sergeant Jakes had joined them, no doubt trying to unravel what sounded for all the world like quite a complicated story.

But then, something in Jakes’ manner gave DeBryn pause, led him to watch the group further.

It was the familiarity with which Jakes approached the young man with the red-gold hair that caught his eye—It was Jakes’ job to encourage the witnesses to talk to him, certainly, but it seemed a bit out of character for the sardonic sergeant to pull out his own handkerchief and wipe the blood off of the face of the young man, the one who must have fallen beneath Winter, the former fiancé of the evening’s tale of heartbreak.

When Jakes reached out his hand, the man looked up. And DeBryn felt as if the breath had been knocked completely out of his body.

He may have looked much altered—dressed in an elegant, perfectly-tailored evening suit, his face thinner, and hair much wilder than DeBryn remembered—but there was no mistaking those eyes—the large eyes so blue that DeBryn could feel the brilliant blueness from across the wide room.

 

Suddenly, Morse stepped into his mind with a past and a future that he never would have imagined for him.

Morse, the former fiancé? Of a woman so possessive or obsessive that she would pursue him at gunpoint?

 

Morse, who was running away with another man?

 

And then DeBryn’s eyes were drawn to Bixby, who was sitting just beside Morse, casting upon him an oddly solicitous look. Surely, that was just courteousness? Bixby did seem a trifle too suave, perhaps, but he did have good manners.

But then, Morse turned and looked up at him, and, once again, DeBryn felt his breath catch in his throat.

The Morse he had known kept his expression carefully impassive: He was a closed book, one that didn’t invite casual perusal. DeBryn had always counted it as something of a victory when he made a wry remark that coaxed a twitch of a smile from that wide, mobile mouth, one that was so often set in a frown.

But as Morse glanced up at Bixby, there was something else there, an openness he had never seen in those guarded eyes. He was like a man who had been lost in a desert, looking on a cool and sheltering oasis. It was a look so raw that even Jakes turned away.

 

DeBryn never would have believed it. There was a time he had wondered, it’s true, whether the veneer of otherness so apparent in Morse, the aura of loneliness that shrouded him, might have at its source a cause that DeBryn knew all too well.

But then, Thursday’s greatest complaint about his bright young lad had always been that he was a pushover for a pretty face.  “He sees a bird with a broken wing, and he’d let her get away with murder,” he had huffed. Morse was putty in the hands of a female suspects and witnesses, Thursday said.

But perhaps Thursday’s observations did not preclude DeBryn’s prior theory after all. For there was no mistaking that look.

And from what he knew of E. Morse—once he looked at someone in that way, there would be little anyone else could do to persuade him from his course.

 

There was something cruel about realizing that what you had not even dreamed to hope for might have been possible—right at the moment when it no longer was. 

 

DeBryn shook such foolish thoughts away and returned his attention to Henry Winter, silently apologizing to the man for not being more expedient in tending to him.

He suspected the man might understand.

In one way or another, they had both of them that night suffered heartbreak at the hands of one in the same person.

*****

But, DeBryn was not one to brood. Life needed to be getting on with, after all. He might never forget E. Morse, but with time, the pang would subside. One day he’d be a fond memory, like a beautiful stone set along the garden path. You would pick it up, and it would feel cool and smooth in your hands. And then you would set it down and be on your way.

 

Such thoughts of what might have been were absurd. After all, what did he really know of the man?

 

The Morse of his imaginings might have proved to be quite a different person from the real man. _His_ awkward, solitary Morse would have hated such society affairs as the one during which Henry Winter had ended his relatively short life. He would have had contempt for such aggrandizements of alcohol and music and glitter and spectacle.

If he had been forced to attend such a thing, he would have hugged the wall, raising his brows in disdain as the band thumped on.

But, no, in reality, there he was: all dressed up, and not standing off in some corner, but rather—bizarrely enough—the veritable belle of the ball.

 

And take this Bixby fellow—he was handsome enough and charming enough and rich enough, certainly—but the chap seemed more of a type than an actual person. Would the Morse he had invented fallen for such a person? Bestowed such a look of devotion on a man whose laughing brown eyes expressed all the depth of a stock report?  

Certainly not.

But that was hardly fair. Nor kind. After all, what had the man done to him? His only crime had been that he had managed to do what DeBryn had not: to know what it was that he wanted and to have pursued it until it was his.

******

The last time he heard Morse mentioned around the nick, Thursday had told Bright, “The lad’s gone. Packed up and disappeared. Took his things with him this time though.” He smiled ruefully, as if this were the best he could hope for.

It was best to forget about E. Morse.

*****

If only he could. It was only that next spring when he was out poking about in a new bookshop, when the name seemed to call out to him from a shelf: Endeavour Morse.

Surely, it couldn’t be.

Although _Endeavour_? That would certainly be one explanation for why Morse had made it such a point to use his surname only, to hide his Christian name behind the one initial—E.

He picked the book up and flipped it open.

Some of the verses were beautiful little things—as deceptively simple as butterfly wings. But many of them seemed to soar alarmingly out of control. Could it have been his quiet, reticent Morse who had written so explosively? The syntax leapt and jumped, images seemed to fall like stones and then burst into flight like birds. Or even into flames. Some of the passages churned with a turbulence that stirred up emotions and passions that DeBryn felt were best left at the bottom of the soul, best left in undisturbed.

There was a beauty in the terror that left DeBryn’s heart aching. But no. This could not have been written by his Morse, the austere and restrained young man he had known.

It was too painful to consider otherwise—it was painful to think that he had once stood within arm’s reach of a man who could write such things. He remembered now, too late, how Morse would sometimes linger in the doorway, be so quick to meet his eyes in sympathy. “Doctor?” he would ask, quietly, trying to draw DeBryn’s eye.

He remembered, too, how he, DeBryn, had looked away, kept his eyes on his paperwork, lest his eyes reveal a hint of what sometimes stirred in his heart.

“Here you are, Morse,” he had said, perfunctorily, handing him a file.

 

  
What if he had said those words in a different way, allowed his hand to brush Morse’s, if only for a moment?

 

But no. His Morse could not have written this. His Morse was all logical puzzles and subtlety. Much of this poetry was beautiful, yes, but it was almost too much so—an excess that bordered to the boundaries of sanity. This Endeavour Morse seemed half-mad as a matter of fact.

He weighed the book in the palm of his hand, considering, then transferred it to the other hand. As he turned the book over, all the doubts he had were flown—for there he was, his Morse, looking out at him from the photo on the back. His hair was just as unruly as the last time he had seen him, but it was now tucked behind his ears, and his face looked slightly fuller. 

There was something unfamiliar in his expression—a softness around that lush mouth and in those overlarge, incandescent eyes, whose blueness was apparent even in a black-and-white photo. It was a look of a fragile and unexpected happiness, the telltale dizziness of someone in love.

It couldn’t help but bring a gentle smile to DeBryn’s face.

“Well, well,” he murmured. “Good for you then, Morse. Good for you.”

But then, DeBryn felt his heart clench with an unexpected sadness. He had no idea why it should be so; he would have at one time given half of what he owned to see such an expression light Morse’s face.

It was just that, he supposed, he would have given the other half to have been the one to put it there.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Bixby sits in his study, savoring the way the afternoon sun slants through the windows, tracing patterns on the carpet and bringing out the richness of the wood of his desk.

It’s his favourite time of day—it’s when the sun brings everything to life, sharpens edges, makes the room burst forth into a lush clarity that’s wonderful to behold.

Outside, the August sky is the deepest of summer blues. White clouds drift across it like lazy daydreams, and, suddenly, Bixby remembers the white balloons that had been tied up and down the bannisters at one of his parties back in Oxfordshire. 

******

The roving colored lights of red and green and blue lit the balloons up like clouds at sunset, and all the revelers were like brightly-colored birds making their way among them in the half-darkness.

It was the night he had had the row with Bruce Belborough. As soon as the man arrived, he seemed to be baiting him, trying to provoke a fight.

“He’s a bloody upstart!” Bixby had heard the man bellow, before he had even passed out of earshot.

“He’s all right,” Pagan said.

“Oh,” said Belborough, in a tone heavy with sarcasm. “Did you hear that? _Did you hear that, Tony?_ Pagan says he’s all right.”

“If you were going to be so bloody, why did you come?” Pagan said.

“Same reason everyone else does,” Belborough said. “To see what all the _fuss_ was about. For the bloody _spectacle_ of it all!”

The spectacle.

And it was true. Bixby had begun his kingdom in that way.

He used to keep the lights low, to use colored lights to create an illusion of brightness, while, in reality, all was half in shadow, and everyone wore masks.

But now his empire was solid. And real. And the brightness of the afternoon sun, the unforgiving sharpness of its angle, could not dispute that.

 

Bixby sets a file down on the desk and rises from his chair. He’s about to go and seek out Endeavour, when he sees that he’s already there, hovering uncertainly in the doorway, scrutinizing him. Just as he had at that party. The one reveler who carried his mask in his hand. And the one who had eventually seen through Bixby’s.

Although why Endeavour should be looking at him with such suspicion this afternoon, he can’t fathom.

 

Endeavour leans in the doorway and crosses his arms. “What are you up to?” he asks. “You aren’t trying to bribe the dictator from some obscure principality for a title, are you?”

Bixby huffs a laugh. “Wherever would you get an idea like that?” he asks.

Although, actually……

“There are some very strange people who pulled up front just as I was walking up to the house,” Endeavour says. “In a fairly ostentatious limousine. And they are wearing anachronistic military uniforms. Long red jackets with gold brocade. They’re a pretty rough looking lot, actually. They all of them look like they could do with a good wash.”

“What the . . . ? Well, did you speak with them, before you came in?”

Endeavour blinks at him in surprise. “Of course not. I don’t want to know about this. I’m going upstairs.”

“So, what? You just ignored them and walked past them and came in?”

“Yes. I’m not talking to those people.”

Bixby casts a look up to the heavens. He has, contrary to whatever Endeavour might think, no idea who these people might be, but it wouldn’t have killed him to at least be polite, on the off chance it’s some interesting piece of business they’re proposing.

Just then, the doorbell begins to chime, echoing from down the hall.

“Madame Lambert and Adele have gone home, so you had better get that,” Endeavour says. “I’m going upstairs.”

 

Endeavour turns and walks back out to the hall, and Bixby follows. When they get to the broader front of the hall, Endeavour heads up the stairs, seeming to take them almost two at a time, leaving Bixby to go to the front door to see what on earth is going on out there.

When he opens to the door, he almost wants to laugh out loud. He recognizes them at once—or some of them, anyway. It’s the pop group The Wildwood, accompanied by another young man in a driver’s uniform. Sure enough, three of the band members are wearing long red jackets with heavy gold brocade and improbably exaggerated bellbottom pants.

Their images have been plastered virtually everywhere for the past two years. Only Endeavour would fail to recognize them, mistake them for the lieutenants from some forgotten mountain duchy.

“May I help you?” Bixby asks. He certainly hopes they aren’t looking for a financial backer. Pop groups are far too fly-by-night to elicit Bixby’s interest.

“We were hoping to see Endeavour Morse, actually,” says the tallest and shaggiest looking one of the group. Bixby recognizes him as the band’s lead guitarist, Ken Wilding. “We were told down in the village that he lives here—is that right?”

Bixby pauses for a moment, deliberating. They might want to see Endeavour, but he’s relatively certain Endeavour doesn’t want to see them.

But what else is to be done? A good host doesn’t leave his guests wanting.

He steps aside and gestures for them to follow him into the house. He leads them to the large, airy drawing room, where some of them sit down at once, and some wander about, examining the place. “I’ll just go and search him out, shall I?” Bixby says.

On the way up the stairs, Bixby realizes his mistake. He just left a group of casual, sloppy pop stars in the same room as Endeavour’s record player. What are the odds that they’ll go ahead and get some of his records out, turn the thing on?

“Endeavour?” he shouts. The more quickly he gets him downstairs the better.

Bixby finds him in the window seat in the sitting room of their suite, clacking away on his typewriter. He doesn’t look up when Bixby comes in.

“There are some people downstairs, to see you,” he says.

Endeavour’s head snaps up at this, his face goes white. “Me?” he says. “What have I done?”

“No, it’s . . . those are just costumes. They are a pop band.”

“A pop band?” he says, wonderingly, in such a manner that suggests that the possibility of pop stars vising him is even more improbable than a visit from some paramilitary troop. “What do they want with me?”

“I don’t know, do I? They simply want to speak with you.”

He gives Bixby a look, as if can’t imagine anything more distressing, and slowly rises from the window seat. He trails Bixby down the stairs making a face as though he’s descending the rings of Dante’s Inferno.

When they come in to the drawing room, sure enough, a man with a wild mop of dark hair is thumbing through Endeavour’s records, and Ken Wilding has the turntable going. A stranger handling his records leaves Endeavour looking as if he might spontaneously combust, but he quickly regains his composure.

 

Watching Endeavour engage in any social interaction is a fascinating process—it’s a bit like watching a child’s toy boat make its way across a pond—you find yourself rooting for it, holding your breath in the hopes it might make it across, while all the while you understand that there is no knowing which way the winds might blow.

“Hello?” Endeavour says uncertainly. “May I help you?”

Ken Wilding, the man who had spoken for the group at the door, strides over. “Hey, Endeavour, man. Been wanting to meet you for quite some time now.”

The casual use of his Christian name does not go over well. Endeavour, whether consciously or not, pulls himself up to his full height. “And you are?”

The man looks surprised. They are known worldwide, after all—Wilding, no doubt, is accustomed to being recognized wherever he goes.  “Ken Wilding. Lead guitarist of Wildwood.”

“Wildwood?” he asks faintly, looking over to Bixby. It’s like he’s a lost traveler in a foreign country and looking for someone to translate.

“They are a pop group. They are very well-known, actually,” Bixby says.

“Ah,” Endeavour says. 

“Band, actually,” Ken Wilding corrects. “We prefer band.” Then he turns to Endeavour. “Shit, man. You mean you never heard of us? You must not get out of the house much.”

“No, I don’t. Not if I can help it,” Endeavour says.

They all laugh at this, leaving Endeavour looking slightly bemused.

A younger man in an open collared white pirate shirt and a red-violet fedora, meanwhile, has been watching Endeavour as if he is completely star-struck. Or even, could it be . . . Bixby takes a moment to get the measure of the man . . .  love struck?

Ken Wilding reaches out an arm and loops the younger man in. “This is my brother Nick. He first bought one of your books ages ago. Has whole pieces memorized. It’s he who got us turned on to your stuff…”

“Oh. Well, hello,” Endeavour says, reaching out to shake Nick’s hand.  Nick hesitates for a fraction of a second and then steps up to take it.

“We even have been staying out in your old stomping grounds, checking out all your old haunts,” Ken says. “We’ve got a house—Maplewick Hall—in Oxfordshire. Nick’s made a few pilgrimages out to that lake house, haven’t you Nick?”

Nick looks down at this. “You needn’t tell him that, Ken,” he murmurs.

Endeavour looks stricken. “Lake house?” he asks, his voice fallen to a raspy whisper. “What lake house?”

“Your old lake house, man. Where you got your inspiration. Where you wrote your first book. All sorts of freaks hang out there these days. The old man that owns the main house has hired someone to sit out at the road, to charge five pounds admission. But there are ways around that. Those that don’t have the dough simply cut through the woods.”

“You mean, people are, are going there? To the lake house? People are going all through the woods?” Endeavour asks. He looks as if he’s gone rather white all of the sudden, but Bixby doesn’t understand why. Surely, he doesn’t feel any attachment to that old place, does he? There’s something odd there…

“Sure, man,” Ken is saying. “They want to see what the place is all about. See if any of that inspiration wears off on them, right Nick?”

 

Nick is turning redder by the minute, while Endeavour looks slightly faint.

But Ken Wilding seems not to notice. “And this,” he says, gesturing to a young man with long brown hair parted neatly down the middle, “is Christopher Clark. And on drums,” he adds, as the man with the mop of dark hair nods, “is Stix Noble.”

Ken Wilding, his introductions done, stops and folds his arms, waiting for some response from Endeavour. Surely, this is the moment where, typically, the new acquaintance gushes over the band’s work.

“I’m sorry,” Endeavour says, “but, I just . . . I don’t know who you are exactly. Or what you want of me.”

They all laugh at this. “So you really never heard of us?” Stix Noble asks.

Endeavour shrugs. “Sorry, no.”

“They’ve got our latest on the radio around the clock,” says Ken. “You must have heard our grooves at some point, man.”

Just then, he begins to sing, “ _Jennifer Sometimes sits in the sunshine, playing with her hair. Go back to the old school, look under a toadstool, there’s nobody there.”_

Endeavour’s face goes dead at these words. Bixby can only suppose that this must be one of the songs those art thieves had played on the radio when he was abducted last spring, one of the songs he found so objectionable.

“Oh,” Endeavour says. “I think I did hear that once. I was tied up in the back seat of a car at the time, though.”

Bixby puts his hand over his face and utters a groan. He knows Endeavour means it as a light snub—to let them know that he’d have to be literally tied up and forced against his will to listen to such a song.

 

But it doesn’t exactly take an Oxford man to guess how this lot will take a statement like that.

And, sure enough, as expected, they all laugh raucously at this. Bixby moves his hand away from his face, hardly daring to look, and is surprised to see they are all looking at _him_.

What?

Oh.

 Oh, for. . . .

“Well, we certainly aren’t here to judge, mate,” Ken says. “It’s none of our business what you two get up to.”

Well, Bixby thinks, that’s the limit.

Bixby chances a glance at Endeavour and can see the moment comprehension dawns: his overlarge blue eyes widen alarmingly: Bixby has never seen him look so thoroughly English.

 He and Endeavour’s eyes meet—for all their differences in personality, on this, they’ re in agreement. He can almost hear Endeavour’s voice in his head.

_How long do you suppose I have to be polite to these people before we get rid of them?_

Bixby shrugs.

_Maybe ten, fifteen minutes?_

Endeavour shakes his head, slightly, as if he’s determined to get through this somehow.

“And you are?” Endeavour asks.

He has turned his back on the others now, addressing the young man in the driver’s uniform who is standing off in a corner. 

The young man startles, as if he didn’t expect to be acknowledged. “I’m just the driver.”

Endeavour smiles at this. “‘Just the driver?’ Goodness. What an unusual name. And I thought my name was a trial.”

The man smiles back, shyly. “Oh. I mean. Finch. Barry Finch.”

“Finch?” Endeavor asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like the bird, see?”

“Yes,” Endeavour says. He looks thoughtful for a moment, as if he’s appraising them all. “So, what can I help you with, then? You obviously didn’t come out all this way simply because you fancied a walk.”

Ken Wilding looks relieved to cut to the chase. “We were wondering if you might consider a collaboration,” he says.

“A collaboration?”

“Yeah, mate.  Just think: You could be a real voice of our generation. Poetry is nice for academic types, but it doesn’t typically reach the masses, does it?”

“Voice of our generation?” Endeavour asks, bemused. “I thought your set didn’t trust anyone over thirty?”

God only knows, Bixby thinks, where he picked that up.

“We don’t,” Wilding says.

“Well, I’m thirty-one September last, so . . .”

Ken shrugs as if it’s all the same to him. “We don’t quibble on the numbers, mate.”

“Hmmmmm,” Endeavour says. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“We want you to write some lyrics for us. For a song.”

“Oh,” Endeavour says, “Sorry. No.”

“No? Come on man, we’re ready to test the limits. There are so many trite love songs on the radio—it’s all the same, isn’t it?” Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl. But we think the airwaves are ready for a song about,” and here Ken Wilding pauses dramatically, “the love that dare not speak its name.”

Bixby is alarmed by this. Dare not speak its name? It took him quite a while for Endeavour to let him speak his name. What’s this about names, then?

“What on earth are they on about?” Bixby asks.    

Endeavour seems to understand Bixby’s concern. “It’s nothing to do with names,” he explains. “It’s a phrase from a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas. It’s meant to be a euphemism. For homosexuality.”

“Ah,” Bixby says.  

Wait, what?

Bixby is all for Endeavour pursuing his artistic expression or whatever it is, but he’s not completely prepared for him to set himself up as some sort of poster child for a pop band’s social agenda.

While about a quarter of Bixby’s associates know about Endeavour, mostly those based in France or those who have wives with links to the arts or to the literary world—and who were bound to hear rumors anyway—with the vast majority of his associates—stodgy old British presidents of utility and shipping firms and the like—Bixby finds it more prudent to stick solely to business.

It’s not as if he doesn’t love Endeavour. It’s just that he loves making money, too.  

So there it is: He may be shallow, but, well, at least he’s honest about it. 

 

But it seems like it all might be a moot point: Endeavour doesn’t look exactly thrilled by the idea.

 

“Oh, no,” Endeavour says. “I shouldn’t think I’d be interested in anything like that.”

“Why not? I heard you were difficult. But don’t you want to speak up, help the movement?  I mean, you love men, don’t you?” 

Endeavour looks positively startled at the suggestion. “Uh, I do one. But not in the plural. I’m not particularly fond of people in general, really.”

“Well, just write one for him, then,” Ken says, then jerks his head in Bixby’s direction.

Again, Endeavour and Bixby’s eyes automatically meet: and, at the same moment, they both start laughing.

“Goodness, that’s just, I’m sorry that’s just so soppy,” Endeavour says, tears standing in the corners of his bright blue eyes. “Besides, what would he do if word got out that some love song on the radio was about him? How would he ever be taken seriously?”

Bixby releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He’s grateful that Endeavour isn’t hurt by his wish to keep his existence under wraps with certain people he works with, that he understands.

“I’m sorry—you seem very sincere and I’m sure your music is very,” Endeavour can’t seem to think of a diplomatic word here, and so moves on to the next sentence, “but I just don’t know anything about such things. I wouldn’t be of any use to you.”

“Don’t be a drag, man. Shit. This is your chance to bring poetry to the people. Think of the publicity we would all get, if nothing else,” Ken Wilding says.

Nick Wilding looks slightly embarrassed at this. There is an intelligence and sensitivity in his blue eyes that his more bombastic brother seems to lack. Bixby wonders why on earth Ken did not let Nick be the one to take the lead in this affair.

Well, the whole thing was certainly not well planned. Bixby’s sure they’ve lost him now.

“I don’t want to be rude, but, . . . .” Endeavour says.  

That’s generally a sign that rudeness will follow, but luckily the younger brother, Nick, breaks in.

“Leave off, Ken. It’s cool. I didn’t think he’d be interested. It’s his choice.  Glad to have met you all the same,” he says. He reaches his hand out to shake Endeavour’s—it’s at once a gesture of farewell and an expression that there’s no hard feelings.

“Oh,” Endeavour says, shaking his hand.  “Thank you. For understanding.”

Endeavour looks at the man with real gratitude. And for a moment, Bixby is grateful, too. He could tell Endeavour was reaching his limit.

Then Nick Wilding seems as if he’s holding onto Endeavour’s hand a bit too long, and Bixby feels like he’s reaching his limit as well.

All right. Show’s over, boys.

Bixby clears his throat. “So,” he says, “Thanks ever so much for dropping by.”

Endeavour begins walking them from the drawing room to the hall.

 

Well, off they go, and good riddance, Bixby thinks. He hates to see such sloppiness.

 If they had an ounce of cleverness, they would have let Nick, the quiet one, who seems to feel some connection to Endeavour’s poetry, speak for the group. This Ken chap is just too overbearing to be believed; he would have had Endeavour baulking even if he was trying to engage him to write the lyrical score of an opera.

They didn’t even get him to sit down for goodness’ sake. If it was a love song they were after, they could have made it clear it needn’t be a drums and electric guitar sort of number—the Beatles’ “Let It Be” had been on the radio all summer—and what was that if not a piano ballad, really?

They could have brought a lute, told him they were interested in reviving the tradition of the twelfth-century French troubadours. That would have gotten his interest at least. They could have had him chatting away, and who knows? If they had listened long enough to Endeavour expound on the subject, they might have just gotten him to do the damn thing.

They are just filing out into the hall, when Endeavour asks, “May I talk to you, before you go?’

They all look up hopefully. Is he, perhaps, in the process of changing his mind?

Endeavour nods to Barry Finch, who looks flustered at the very thought. “Me?” he asks. “I’m just the driver.”

“I think we established that,” he laughs. “But may I speak to you? All the same?”

Finch shrugs. “I sup’pose.”

The others look at one another and shrug—there’s no second-guessing what eccentric poets might do. They bow to a cat and thumb their noses at kings.

Finch follows Endeavour back into the drawing room.

“Are you . . . are you all right?”

Finch seems surprised at this. “Of course. How d’ya mean?”

“How did you come to work for them? For the, the Wildwood, is it?”

“Oh, that. I was a brickie,” Finch says. “Doing some work out at Maplewick Hall. I’ve been a fan of the band for ages, and then, there they were, moving right into the place. It was like a dream, you know? I got to talking to them, telling them what a fan I was of the band, and they seemed to take a liking to me. Got me this job.”

Endeavour nods.

“These sorts of people, though,” Endeavour says. “I don’t know—they can be intimidating, can’t they? It must be good fun to be part of their group, but, do they ever . . . ? Well, you should know—you should know that you shouldn’t be afraid to trust your instincts. If you feel something they do is off.”

Barry Finch looks at him blankly, as if can’t fathom what Endeavour is saying. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

Endeavour looks at him a little sadly. Bixby may not be the most sensitive of people, but even he can work out what this is all about.

“Is that all, then?” Finch asks.

“Yes,” Endeavour says, “that’s all.”

 

 

“Do you think the fellow is a little out of his depth?” Bixby asks, once Finch has left to join the others out at their car.

Endeavour nods, thoughtfully looking at the door through which the young man has just left. “I think Barry Finch should watch out for grackles,” he says.

 

*********

That night, Bixby can’t get to sleep. He’s staring up at the darkness of the ceiling, when he asks, suddenly, “Endeavour? You don’t mind, do you?”

“Hmmmm?” Endeavour murmurs. “Mind what?”

Bixby turns to face him. His eyes are closed, and he looks like he’s on the brink of drifting off.

“That, you know, I really wouldn’t want the publicity of a song like that,” Bixby says. “That not everyone knows, well, you know, old man. That I can’t really afford to be as open about it as you are.”

“No,” Endeavour says softly. “It’s sort of for the best, actually. This way, I only have to meet people with whom I have some chance of getting through a conversation all right.” He scowls for a moment, and then smiles. “Actually, even if I were a woman, it might be best if I didn’t have to try to talk with some of the men you work with. I would be terrible at all that sort of schmoozing. I can be a bit awkward sometimes.”

“You don’t say?” Bixby says.

Endeavour’s eyes remain closed, but he smiles again and shoves the flat of his foot lightly against the side of Bixby’s leg in reproof. 

Then he opens his eyes. “It’s all right,” he says. “You know, I'm not always that forthcoming, either. I mean, you do know that a lot of them are about you, don’t you? I mean, not _those_ ones. But the others.”  

“Yes,” Bixby says.

Endeavour is quiet for a moment. “I just didn’t want people who think you tie me up to know that.”

Bixby hums noncommittally. He did sort of walk right into that one.

 “That is what they meant, isn’t it? Why they were laughing?”

“Yes,” Bixby says.

Endeavour sighs and scrunches up his pillow, snuggling down into it.

“It’s odd.  I used to be so cautious about things like that. I suppose I’ve quite forgotten,” he muses.

“Cautious? About what?” Bixby asks.

“You know. About saying things that might be taken as a double entendre. People at your parties used to be silly with it. I thought you were just the same, at first.”

Bixby frowns at this. “How do you mean?”

Endeavour lowers and smooths his voice in a rough approximation of Bixby’s. “ _Do you have everything you need?_ ” he says suggestively. Then he laughs quietly.

“What?” Bixby asks. “All I meant was. . .”

“I know that. That is, I understood that later. But so many people at those parties were like that. Always saying little things to catch at you. Since it was your house, I supposed you were the worst of all. Like Bruce to the tenth power. I don’t know why I kept going to those parties, actually. Well, I suppose I do.”

Bixby stills at that. He had been so sure that Endeavour hadn’t cared for him at first. Could it be true that he, too, had been drawn to him from the very beginning?

“Why did you keep coming, then?” Bixby asks.

“Well, the free alcohol,” Endeavour says. “All I really wanted to do was to be thoroughly inebriated at all times, and I hadn’t any money, so . . . I don’t know. . . putting up with comments like that was just sort of the price you paid, I suppose.”

There’s another long silence.

“It’s odd I should have slipped up so with those people. I suppose I walked right into that one.”

“Yes,” Bixby laughs softly. “You did.”

“All that just seems like it was a whole different life, doesn’t it?” Endeavour asks, his voice beginning to slur a bit. He yawns. “I’ve quite forgotten how I used to think, then. It’s hard to remember . . . ”

Bixby mulls this over for a moment. He’s just ready to ask Endeavour what he means by that, when the soft breathing beside him evens out and deepens into the cadences of sleep.

 

******

 

Bixby wakes up early the next morning. On the wardrobe doors, his grey Zegna suit and a green stripe tie are hanging out. Friday. Well, thank goodness for that. He has to drive in to Stuttgart that day, so it’s best to get an early start. Hopefully, he can get back in good time.

 

*******

When Bixby arrives home, he’s looking forward to nothing more than throwing himself down on the couch in the drawing room and having a Scotch. Endeavour is most likely already there, stretched out on the carpet, listening to records. Maybe he’ll be playing that Requiem thing, something serene and contemplative.

God. Maybe Endeavour is right. Maybe this is the beginning of middle age.

As soon as he opens the door, he knows that something is wrong.

There are papers scattered like snowflakes all over the front hall, and he can hear Madame Lambert, one of the maids who comes up from the village each week day, shouting angrily.

At the sound of Bixby closing the door, she runs out of the drawing room and into the hall. Her dark eyes are glittering angrily. “Monsieur Bixby,” she says, grabbing at his arm and pulling him to follow her. “Thank God you are home. Monsieur Morse has gone absolutely mad. He’s tearing up the whole house.”

Bixby freezes for a moment. What on earth could be happening? Before he can ask more, she flies down the hall and into the drawing room. He follows her, almost afraid of what he might find.

The drawing room has been destroyed: pillows and cushions have been tossed aside onto the floor, chairs moved around, a side table pulled out from against the wall.

Endeavour is on his stomach, looking under the couch. Madame Lambert grabs a discarded throw pillow from off the floor and hits him with it.

“Stop this!” she hisses. “You’re destroying the whole house. Monsieur Bixby! Make him stop this at once.”

Hearing Bixby’s name, Endeavour looks up. “She’s gone mad,” he says. “I told her I would clean it all up.”

 

“You’ll never clean all of this up on your own!” she cries. “You’ll last twenty minutes and then you’ll wander off! I want overtime if he leaves me with this Monsieur Bixby! It’s willful destruction! He’s been at this for hours! All over the house!”

Endeavour ignores her. He clambers up off the floor and begins moving cushions around that have obviously been searched under already, seeing as they’ve been tossed on the floor. Bixby stands for a minute in the doorway, considering. Meanwhile, Madame Lambert has grabbed her purse, and, giving Bixby a last pointed look, slams out the door.

 

Madame has a point: it’s clear that he’s looking for something, but there is no rhyme or reason to his search. It’s with an odd sense of blind panic that he circles about, looking under things he had just looked under. It’s actually fairly disquieting to watch.

There’s only one other time that he’s seen Endeavour pace around a place so obsessively—that time he found him in the lake house, tearing the place up in search of one of his notebooks.

“What are you looking for?” Bixby asks.

“My bag,” he says, and his voice is strangled. “The whole thing is gone. Gone. gone. gone.”

He throws himself onto the floor again, laying himself flat so that he can look under all the furniture.

Bixby walks into the room, picks up a cushion from off the floor, sets it back on the sofa and sits on it.

“Endeavour.”

“What?”

“Stop and think for a moment. When was the last time you had it?”

Endeavour looks up.

“Yesterday. I was walking up to the house when I saw those people pulling up in their limousine. As soon as I saw how odd they looked, I came in to tell you. And I dropped my bag on the table in the hall as I came in.”

“And it’s not there, now? You’re sure that’s the last time you saw it?”

 “Yes,” Endeavour says slowly. Then he looks at Bixby’s face and immediately reads the knowing expression there.

“No,” he breathes. “They wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t they?” Bixby replies, archly.

Endeavour looks dumbfounded. “But they are artists of sorts, aren’t they? I mean, I don’t care for popular music, and that one man was fairly insufferable, but the main of them seemed decent at heart. Why would they steal someone else’s work? What’s the point of it?”

Bixby shrugs. “Like the fellow said, I suppose. The publicity?”

Endeavour slowly rises to his feet, his pupils blown wide, as if he’s just thought of something.

“I can’t do this,” he says. “All my drafts for Turner were in there. I can’t have my words in one of those awful songs on the radio. No, no, no. I can’t do this.”

He puts his hands to his hair and begins carding them through it, “No, no, no,” he says.

“Endeavour . . .

“No!” Endeavour says. “They won’t get away with this!”

Bixby snorts at that. “I should say not. I bought that bag at Casini. Do they have any idea what that thing cost? Those cheeky little buggers.”

The comment takes Endeavour by surprise. Bixby can tell he isn’t certain whether or not he’s serious, but at least the remark seems to have broken his thoughts out of their frenetic circuit.

He considers Bixby, unsure as to whether or not he’s being teased. Then, he seems to decide to be pleased that Bixby also has an axe to grind with the group. “That’s right,” he says. “Cheeky little buggers,” Endeavour echoes.

Endeavour is pacing again, running his hands through his hair until it’s spiraling around him chaotically, as if it’s absorbed all the thoughts spiraling through his brain and is sending them off into the atmosphere.

“They won’t get away with this. They all but told me where they were. Maplewick Hall. That’s got to be Thames Valley’s jurisdiction.”

“So, what are you going to do? Call Inspector Thursday and report the bag stolen?”

“No,” Endeavour says. “He’ll have other cases. He won’t care about a bag as much as I do.”

Bixby shakes his head. He can’t imagine who else at the station would care more about the possibility of Endeavour going absolutely berserk than Thursday.  “Well, if he won’t help you, who do you suppose will?”  
 

“I’m taking the case myself.”

 

Bixby tries to keep his face impassive. It’s utter nonsense, of course. He’s clearly just distraught. “How will you do that?” he asks carefully. “You’re not a detective constable, are you?”

 _Or were you ever?_ he wants to ask.

“I never put my papers in,” Endeavour says.

“It’s been three years!”

“It will be simple,” Endeavour says. “I’ll simply do what you would do.”

“And what’s that?” Bixby asks.

 “I’ll just walk in as if I own the place. I’ll walk in right as if I never left. They’ll all be so blindsided, they won’t know what to say. And after a few days, it will all seem the most natural thing in the world. I’ll go out to Maplewick Hall with a warrant and I’ll tear the place up until I find my bag and every scrap of paper that’s mine.”

Endeavour looks up at Bixby. And how can Bixby argue? It’s true: he started his empire on just that sort of gimmick—for years, in fact, he acted like he was what he wasn’t with such gusto that one day he turned around and found that he was.

“I won’t let them take a thing,” Endeavour seethes. “Not one prepositional phrase.”

“Not one fir cone?”

Endeavour’s expression softens, his mouth twitches up slightly at the corner. Again, he’s not sure if Bixby is joking or not.

But he nods solemnly. “Not one fir cone.” Then he sighs. Suddenly, he looks tired. As if the panic had been the only thing fueling him for the last few hours.

“You don’t . . .” Endeavour begins. “You wouldn’t have anything you might need to do in Britain, do you? In London for example?” He tries to toss this off as throwaway question, but the mute appeal in his eyes is unmistakable.

Bixby had things to do in Britain months ago, but after last spring, he never dreamt he’d get Endeavour to go there. Nor did he much feel like leaving him here alone.

“Of course,” Bixby says.

Endeavour looks around the desolation of the room, looking utterly lost—whether he’s feeling overwhelmed by what he’s just done or what he’s about to do—stepping into a life he left behind three years ago, Bixby isn’t sure.

 “Thank you,” he says.

“It’s nothing,” Bixby says.

 “Well,” he says. “I suppose I had better get this cleared up before Madame Lambert kills me.”

“I’ll help.”

“No,” Endeavour says. “You’ve been gone all day. Besides, it looks worse than it is.”

Bixby hums noncommittally. He certainly hopes so. He’s been hoping so, in fact, for years.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

_You really don’t have a clue, do you? They’ll take everything you hold dear._

There were so many things that could be taken.

Until all you had left were the words to try to puzzle out what the hell had happened.

And then, even your words could be taken.

Words that were small and fragile and unable to lift their heavy heads to look up from out of their nests. It didn’t matter; grackles always had a sharp ear out for weak cries. It was nothing to them, nothing. No effort at all to dash the fragile things, delicate bones showing right beneath the featherless skin, down onto a stone porch floor.

And then they were dead. Dead before they could open their eyes.

You could go out onto the porch and scream, but it wouldn’t do any good. There was nothing you could do. There was no way to get them back.

You could only hope they didn’t suffer long.

 

“Morning, Josephine.”

Endeavour opens his eyes blearily. The sun is already spilling liquid light over the window sills and striking bright beams at the robin’s egg blue wall opposite. The world is blue and white, like the sky. He’s Endeavour, and he’s in the sky, and Morse and Pagan are below, and he’s flying away from them, drifting off and off over the sea.

And then a tanned face is looming over his.

“Josephine?”

“Hmmmmmmm? What?”    

There’s a laugh, and it’s warm and white, like the beams of the sun, and when he hears that streaming laugh, he knows it will be all right.

But wait. That was wrong.

“Don’t call me that,” Endeavour says.

 “You said it for some reason. And it’s far too good to let go,” Bixby says, the laugh still light and alive in his voice.

Endeavour turns and stretches. “I only said it because you were being a wiseacre,” he says.

“How so?” Bixby asks. “Just because I asked you your name?”

“Yes.”

“How is that being a wiseacre?”

Endeavour decides it’s a question he isn’t keen to answer. Especially this early.

Bixby’s elbow is propped on his pillow, his head resting on his closed fist. He looks down at Endeavour as if he’s considering something.

 “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks. 

“I was thinking: why did you get upset when Ken Wilding was talking about the lake house?” Bixby asks. 

“I wasn’t upset.”

“You certainly seemed to be. I thought you looked ready to fall over.” Bixby frowns. “You know, sometimes I think you are awfully wrong about a lot of things.”

Endeavour snorts at this. “Good morning to you, too.”

“No, I mean it. Why were you so worried about people going out there? You haven’t stepped foot anywhere near the place for nearly three years. You do know that you aren’t _there_ , don’t you?”

Endeavour looks at him blankly. “I don’t have the slightest idea as to what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think that you do,” Bixby says. “I think that you have some idea that Pagan . . .  

 

_Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,_

_et lux perpetua luceat ets_

_te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,_

_et tibi reddeture voltum in Jersualem_

_Exaudi orationem meam_

 

“That time you were trying to catch me out on Faulkner, and I said you must have been hell interrogating people, you said . . . “

 

_ad te omnis caro veniet_

_Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,_

_et lux perpetua luceat ets._

 

“Stop that,” Bixby says.

“Stop what? I’m just lying here, listening with rapt attention to your bizarre theories.”

Bixby scowls. “You aren’t listening at all. You’re running a song through your head so as to tune me out. I can see it on your face. You aren’t as clever as you think, you know. It certainly is a good thing you don’t play cards. We’d be living in a box by now.”  

“Well, that’s me told, twice. You ought to get a job at the fair. Bix the Omniscient. You can use your mind-reading abilities to tell people’s fortunes. What rubbish.”

“Hmmmmmmm,” Bixby says. He turns over and reaches for the clock on his nightstand. “We had better get up. The airline offices will be open in a half an hour. We can call about tickets.”

“No,” Endeavour says.

“’No?’ What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I’ve changed my mind. If they want those poems that badly, they can have them. I’ll just deny I ever wrote such things.”

“Why would you do that?”

Endeavour shrugs. “I don’t . . . .  I don’t really want to know which of them took them. What if it was that mournful-looking fellow, Nick? Or what if was that Barry Finch, trying to impress the others? Or the other quiet one, Christopher, was it? He seemed decent enough. I just don’t want to know. I’d rather they just keep them and I forget all about them.”

“So you’re going to let them just take poems you’ve been working on for months?”

Endeavour sighs. “They already have, haven’t they?”

“But I don’t understand. Just a few months ago you bested two art thieves in a forest with both hands tied behind your back. Now, you’re going to let a stringy set of pop stars walk all over you?”

“Yes,” Endeavour says, simply.  

“Oh, no,” Bixby says.  “I don’t think so.”

Endeavour stills at this. “You know it won’t work. You know what I was saying last night was absolutely daft. I won’t be able to simply show up out of the blue, walk into the station as if I’m a police officer.”

“No,” Bixby says. “Probably not. But I do think if you go down there, at least report the thing stolen, everything will work out, one way or the other.”

There is a silence. Endeavour rather doubts this. He knows if he wants the bag back, he’ll have to take the case one way or another. After all, reporting a missing book satchel in a city filled with students is hardly going to spark an all-points bulletin.

But that’s Bixby. He always has such faith in the system. He’s awfully naïve sometimes.

Then Bixby says quietly, “And this change of heart has nothing to do with the fact that you don’t want to go to England? That you don’t want to leave home?”

“I’ve been back to England.”

“You travelled the circuit of your tour, very nicely,” Bixby concedes. “And you looked faintly miserable the whole time.” Bixby pauses for a moment, considering. “Why did you finally go into the village that day last spring? When I was in Paris?

Endeavour rolls over and buries his face in his pillow. “I know what you’re thinking. It won’t work on a plane.”

“Now hark who fancies himself a mind reader. All I did was ask you a question.”

Endeavour looks up. A faint line has formed on Bixby’s brow and his eyes are dark with concern. “Why did you leave that day?” he asks. “All those weeks I was here: I would have gone with you. Why did you go once I was gone? Was I stopping you somehow? Holding you back?”

“Of course not,” Endeavour says.

“Then why did you choose that day?”  

 Endeavour sighs. “I don’t know. I had been thinking about it for a while. But I didn’t want to try it. In case I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want you to be disappointed, I suppose.”

“Disappointed?” Bixby asks, incredulously. “Why would you feel I’d be disappointed?”

“I don’t know,” Endeavour says. “You can be awfully confusing sometimes.”

“How is that?”

Endeavour shrugs. “When I first came here, you seemed to worry always whether or not I would stay. Now, sometimes you seem worried because I don’t want to go.”  

Bixby huffs a laugh. “What’s confusing about that? Just because I hoped you wouldn’t run off straight away doesn’t mean I want to feel as if I’m holding you prisoner here. Sometimes, it seems like you’re . . . .  

 

_Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,_

_et lux perpetua luceat ets_

_te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion_

“But what did you do that day? Endeavour?”

“Hmmmmm? Oh. It was stupid. Madame Lambert and Madame Zumofen ended up seeing the whole thing out the window, too. They were nice about it, though. They pretended to think that I kept forgetting things.”

“So, what did you do?” Bixby prompts again.

 Endeavour pauses for a moment, looks up at the ceiling.

Where to begin?  

“I went out and stood in the front doorway. And, I knew I would probably just be walking, but I brought my bag. I like the way the strap fits over my shoulder; it’s feels like a buffer sometimes between me and, you know, all that awfulness. I know you were joking last night, when you said you wouldn’t stand for it being stolen because you bought it at Casini—that you were trying to distract me from getting into a stew. But, do you know, I wish I had that bag back, too, as much as I wish I had the things that were in it.”

Endeavour absentmindedly runs a hand along where the strap would lie diagonally across his chest, right over his heart—he had gotten used to that heavy, comforting weight. And—perhaps it was because it had spent a long journey home in Bixby’s suitcase—it always seemed to carry a hint of the scent of his aftershave.

Once, Endeavour had carried the bag with him every day, and then, without warning, it was gone. Why can’t life ever give you a warning when things are coming to an end?

 

Then, he realizes that Bixby is still watching him. Bixby who makes light of everything and who makes light. But now he’s looking oddly grim. Oh, yes. He was talking about the day he decided to go to the village.

Oh, God.

Maybe if he ploughs through the story quickly, Bixby won’t have time to consider how pathetic it is.

 

Endeavour takes a deep breath. “So, I started walking. I went out to that fir tree at the end of the drive, and then I walked back to the front door of the house.  Then I left again, and that time I went bit further, to that bend, you know the one, where Monsieur Bonnet has that little garden dacha. And then I came back to the house. And I just kept doing that—walking back and forth--until the last time, I made it all the way to the village. I didn’t really do anything there. I just bought a pastry at the bakery, and I ate it walking back. By the time I was walking up our drive for the last time, you were already coming home.”  

Endeavour rolls over again and rests his face in his pillow. He hopes Bixby will realize he’s done talking about all that.

*****

 

On the plane, Bixby keeps up a solid stream of words. At times, Endeavour thinks he’s trying to distract him with what amounts to a nonstop pep talk—but then, sometimes it seems he is truly angry about the whole affair. He seems almost insulted by the poor job Ken Wilding did in fielding his proposal.

“What would you have done, then?” Endeavour asks.

Bixby leans back, crosses a leg so that his ankle is resting on his knee, settling himself into the seat with the air of a man who had long since figured everything out.

“I would have told you I was in France doing research on medieval ballads and that I was hoping to ask you a few questions about them. Then I would have let you deliver an entire lecture on the subject, let you go on until you were more excited about the topic than I was. And then you would invariably have said what a shame it was that music in the twentieth century isn’t quite up to snuff in comparison with what is was in ages past, and I would have said—that’s a splendid suggestion, old man, why shouldn’t such a rich tradition be revived? You _should_ write a ballad. In the end, you would have come away thinking it was your own idea.”

“Goodness, you certainly seem to have put a lot of thought into how you might trick me,” Endeavour says.

“Trick you? I’d call it convincing, rather. The important question is: would it have worked?”

Endeavour has to mull this over a bit. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I don’t think I would want to write a song for somebody—doesn’t that seem a bit gimmicky? But it might have made me at least think it over. More so than, ‘Shit, man, think of the publicity,’ I suppose.”

Bixby laughs. He seems to think that’s rather funny.

But he does that occasionally, laughs at something Endeavour says that he had considered to be fairly straightforward. It’s a bit odd.

“What’s so funny?” Endeavour finally ventures.

“I don’t know,” Bixby says. “I just don’t suppose I’ve ever heard anyone use the word “shit” in a sentence and still manage to sound like such a snob.”

Endeavour huffs an annoyed laugh and then turns to look out the window. The world is turning from slate blue to patchwork green. It isn’t long before an announcement crackles throughout the plane. They’ll be beginning their decent into London in twenty minutes.

 

*****

Before they head on to Oxford, Bixby wants to stop at his London house—he has a butler he’s left running the place, and he wants to check in with him.

Endeavour has only ever been there once, when they used the house as a place to change into their evening suits before going to the gala where Peter Jakes had been sent to work undercover.

He’s curious to see it again. He remembers the package he held in his hands as he sat where the sun streamed in through the windows of the drawing room back in Lorraine—the package sent to him from the publishing company, the one that bore his name coupled with that unfamiliar London address. Perhaps the Endeavour Morse whose name was on the package is there at the house somewhere.

When they get to the house, Bixby goes into his study to discuss a renovation of the kitchens with the butler. Endeavour roams from room to room—the place doesn’t seem to reflect much of Bixby’s personality—he keeps the house only as a place to stay when he’s in London on business. It looks it, too. The sort of house one has in London to say one has a house in London.

Endeavour climbs the first set of stairs. He checks each room, switching on lights to see if Endeavour Morse of London might be there. Or anyone else for that matter.

But room after room reveals nothing but tasteful furniture and tasteful color schemes; the place has none of the flash of Bixby’s old house in Oxfordshire and none of the warmth of his house in Lorraine.

Endeavour walks to the end of the hall to check the last room on that floor.

And God, there he is!  He flips on a light and there he is! Endeavour lets out a strangled cry of surprise and Endeavour Morse of London does too—he’s just as shocked to see Endeavour of Lorraine.

But no. Wait. It’s just a wardrobe with mirrored doors. It’s just his own reflection.

There’s a rumble of footsteps on the stairs.

“Are you all right?” Bixby asks.

“Yes.”

“Why did you scream?”

“I didn’t _scream_. I was simply surprised, that’s all.”

“Why were you surprised?”

Endeavour tries to think of some excuse, but he can’t come up with anything. It’s best to stick with the truth.

“I’d rather not say,” he says.

*****

By the time they check into the hotel in Oxford the next day, Endeavour has wished a thousand times he was back in France.

Why must Bixby push and push so? If Wilding or whoever it was wanted those words so badly that he would steal them, perhaps Endeavour should just let them go. Just split that piece of himself off. It isn’t as if he hasn’t done that before, and he’s still managing to get along.

Or does Bixby have a point? Perhaps he has done that too many times now. If he keeps dissecting himself, leaving parts of himself behind, will he one day reach a point where there won’t be anything left? Maybe soon he’ll be just like Endeavour Morse of London, who exists only as reflected light in a piece of glass.

Endeavour is thinking this over as he chews on a piece of toast, looking out the windows of the hotel restaurant at the familiar steepled skies of Oxford. Soon, he begins to realize that if he doesn’t get up to leave now, he never will.

He pops the last bit of toast into his mouth and brushes his hands together.

“Well, I’m off, I suppose,” he says.

“Hang on,” Bixby says. “I’ve something for you.”

“What?” Endeavour asks.

Bixby pulls out a pair of his sunglasses.

“You’re joking,” Endeavour says.

“You’re in a city of poetry lovers and academics now. Do you want to be able to walk a block unrecognized or not?”

Endeavour scowls. Then he holds out his hand. “Fine,” he says.

He takes the glasses and puts them on, contemplating his reflection for a long moment in the hotel restaurant window.

 

“I look ridiculous,” he says at last.

“They are a bit big for your face,” Bixby concedes. “But you can pull them off.”

“All right, then,” Endeavour says. It must be so; he knows Bixby cares about such things enough that he would not permit him to go around looking like a complete idiot. “See you later.”

Endeavour heads to the door and takes one last look back before setting out. Bixby is regarding him over his coffee. He’s trying to look nonchalant, but the truth is, he looks like nothing so much as a father watching his five-year old setting off for his first day of kindergarten.

Well. That’s exactly why he told him not to bother coming along. To go ahead back to London and come back to meet him later.

One way or another, it is best that he do this alone. If he succeeds, he’s one more step away from the precipice, from becoming the Endeavour in London who lives only as a reflection.

And if he fails, well . . .  at least Bixby won’t be there to see the disaster.

He hates it when he looks at him that way.

*****

Endeavour stops before the Cowley CID and stares at it in surprise. It’s boarded up, surrounded by a moat of mud and ditches and a fleet yellow construction vehicles bellowing smoke up into the summer sky.

Endeavour suddenly remembers the first dinner the Thursdays had with them in France. Thursday had spoken of a consolidation. But somehow, Endeavour hadn’t stopped to consider the details of what that meant. At the time, he had been a bit concerned about Bixby. He looked as if he was sickening for something.

“Are you looking for the police station, dear?”

Endeavour turns. There, on the sidewalk, is a small, elderly lady in a tweed skirt, walking a three-legged dog on a leash.

“Yes,” Endeavour says.

“It’s so hard to keep up with all of the changes, isn’t it? At least this building they are keeping—it’s being renovated to make a set of new office suites. But it’s sad to see how many things are getting torn down. I don’t much fancy the new architectural style, I must say.”

“Hmmmmmm,” Endeavour says, considering the building before him, one in which he once he spent so many hours, now being completely gutted. What happened to his old desk? By the looks of the pile of debris off to the side of the site, it’s been most likely reduced to splinters.  

“What you want is the new Thames Valley building. It’s over in Kidlington.”

She gives him the address, and Endeavour recognizes the street immediately.

“Would you like me to write it down for you?” the woman asks, reaching for her purse.

“No, I’ll remember. Thank you,” Endeavour says.

“That’s fine, dear,” the woman says.

*****

Endeavour finds the place with little trouble and sees at once that the old woman was right: the building is ugly beyond words.  It’s a flat gray box with rows of industrial looking windows. He supposes it’s considered quite the style. But by the end of the century, Endeavour knows the place is bound to look hopelessly dated. Why they didn’t stick with a more classical architectural scheme, one more suited to Oxford, is beyond him.

He walks inside to find a buzz of flustered busyness and diligent idleness that is the backbone of any bureaucracy.  He sets the sunglasses up on his head and takes a good look around.

The Cowley CID had been wood panels and pea green walls and dim corridors. This place is white and modern, bright with rows of efficient windows along the walls and rows of efficient lights overhead. It’s almost too bright. Here, there are no dusty nooks or corners in which once might brood over five coins, a matchbook and a pocket watch.

 Endeavour is quite at a loss. He had underestimated how much he had counted on rediscovering the familiar contours of the old Cowley building—he might have found the shadow of Morse there, felt some dim stirring of memory to evoke the man he must once have been.

Instead, he feels nothing at all here.

He stands for a moment, watching as officers carry coffee cups and papers and folders. There’s a hum of machines in a corner—it’s a whole fleet of Xerox copiers, much like the one McKinnon had bought.

How can so many things have changed in only three years? It's as if he's fallen into another century, rather than merely the beginning of a new decade.

Well. Be that as it may.

 

Back to work, then?, he asks himself.

Back to work.  

 

He walks on into the station, past rows and rows of desks. It’s overwhelming to make his way through a place so large and so crowded, but, on the other hand, it is lending him cover. Amidst the bustle, no one seems to notice him.

Toward the back of the room, there’s a young woman with sharp eyes and blonde hair, thumbing through some paperwork. At the next desk, a young man with a dark fringe brushing over his eyes is starting out the window. It might not be a bad place to claim a desk. The woman looks thoroughly occupied by her work, the man thoroughly preoccupied. They won’t spare him a second glance.

But, the question is: where to sit? How would he feel if he were to come in to work and find a stranger at his desk? Annoyed, of course. He doesn’t want to start off with his new colleagues on the wrong foot.

But then, behind the young man and woman, Endeavour sees a large desk with a placard baring a familiar name. Sgt. James Strange.

Well, that’s that problem solved, isn’t it? If anyone can afford to do him a favor, it’s Jim Strange. He walks down the aisle of desks, past the man and the woman, and takes his place behind Strange’s desk.

All right. Well. Now what?

Just then, the woman looks up from her paperwork.

Endeavour looks down and starts going through a drawer, looking for some fresh typing paper. If he acts as if there is nothing remarkable about him sitting there, perhaps he won’t elicit her interest, perhaps she’ll just go on with her business.

But no. He can feel she’s still watching him. He takes a quick glance up as he closes the drawer. The young woman looks confused, but she seems prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Hello,” she says, extending her hand. “WPC Trewlove.”

Endeavour takes her hand. “Hello,” he says. “I’m on secondment. From Carshall Newtown. I’ve been called over to help Sgt. Strange on a case.”

“Carshall Newtown?” she asks, wonderingly.

God, Endeavour thinks. Is there even any longer a Carshall Newton?

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t catch your name.”

Endeavour opens his mouth to speak but finds he doesn’t know how to answer that question. Should he give a false name? But what if he gets used to that name, too?

“DC Morse,” he says quickly, under his breath.

He turns and cranks a piece of paper into Jim Strange’s typewriter. If he acts busy, perhaps he can deter any further attempts at conversation.

This is all perfectly natural.

 “Did you say _Morse_?” she asks.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the young woman and the young man exchange bewildered glances.

 

Oh, no.  Do they recognize him from that insipid photo on the back of his first book? He hopes not.

Although that might be preferable to the other possible theory: that even after three years, he’s still grist for the gossip mill. But considering the part he played in a case sealed for fifty years, his imprisonment, his disappearance, his central role in the drama of Bunny’s murder and Henry’s suicide, how could it be otherwise?

Come to think of it, he had never heard of anyone going down in flames quite as spectacularly as he had.

 

He busies himself with making sure the paper is lined just so; it’s easy enough to pretend he hasn’t heard her question.

Then, he begins to type.

He’s listening to the familiar rhythm of the clack-clack-clackclack-clack of the typewriter, watching hard as each key strikes the paper, leaving one black mark and then another. His mind is buzzing under the bright, sterile lights and his thoughts are circling like crows. It’s best to set them out in rows, black marks on paper, like crows sitting calmly on a telephone wire.

 

To find a way back to Morse, he has to pick up where he had left him.

In this world, the world he is in now, sitting at a desk at the Thames Valley Constabulary, Morse left prison and returned to the nick as Thursday’s bagman.

And if that’s so, it would have been Morse, then, and not Strange, who accompanied Thursday to Lake Silence on that summer day three years ago, when Bunny’s body was discovered.

 And his thoughts shift into a staccato rhythm that falls into time with the keys as he begins to type:

 

Thursday stopped at the edge of the woods, looking across a long lawn that rolled down to a lake. The water was flat and deep gray-blue under the July sun, reflecting the trees and the sky in a darker, cooler echo. Scattered across the grass like colorful butterflies, a group of people sat and stood, dressed to the nines in suits and pastel sundresses, chatting and sipping wine and looking blankly out over the water. No matter—people of their set could afford indolence—to tinkle ice in a glass, to stretch across a blanket, hands thrown out behind them in cool grass cared for by someone else.

Thursday ran a finger along his sweat-drenched collar and sighed.

Morse strode past the line of trees, following in Thursday’s wake. And then, suddenly, he came to a stop. For he recognized them at once. After all, how many summer days had he spent so, loafing in the grass amongst them?

Morse’s voice caught in his throat. He knew he should tell Thursday the truth. But that would mean starting down a long path into his past, one that he long since blocked off with stones. Morse had not even been Morse, then. Then, he had been Pagan.

He hoped beyond hope he’d find the courage to speak or the wherewithal to come up with some excuse to leave before they recognized him, but it was too late.

“Good God!” Bruce exclaimed. “Pagan!”

Thursday looked at Morse sharply, the question clear in his dark eyes.

Pippa came up and hugged him. “Pagan, it’s been ages. So you’re really a policeman, then? I thought Tony was lying to us.”

And on and on. It was like a nightmare. Two songs playing at once until you could scarcely think over the din of it all. So discordant that you wanted to run.

“So where have you been keeping yourself? Probably got yourself set up in some shabby little bedsit with records scattered all over the place. What’s your address? We’ll dig you out. Have some bloody fun,” Bruce said.

Out on the lake, a man with a broad smile soared past on a red hydroplane.

“Is he going to do that all day?” Bruce said.

“Oh, please don’t go on. It’s sooooo boooring,” Kay said.

And since when had Kay begun to speak so affectedly? He and she used to laugh at the others sometimes, but now she sounded just like the rest of them.

 

“You can’t be part of this investigation; you know these people. Go wait in the car, then,” Thursday snapped, annoyed at having to handle all of the inquires alone.

And Morse lopped off to the car as the man who had been on the hydroplane—waved in to shore by Tony and Pippa—made his way across the glossy green lawn.

And as Bixby walked north, Morse walked east; they were two points in an expanding universe, travelling further and further apart.

 

Endeavour stops typing. The black marks on the paper are shimmering like rain in the dark, and he can’t fathom why.

“Are you all right?” the young woman asks. She exchanges looks again with the man with the dark fringe.

 

But then, Endeavour thinks of something else, and he’s typing again:

 

And once they were out in the woods in Lorraine and the air smelled of fir trees, and Bixby took him by the waist and swung him over so that he was on top of him and said, “Sometimes I can’t help but think of all that’s happened, but—do you know?— I’d do it all over again.” Then Bixby reached up and cupped his jaw in his broad hand and said, “It’s all been worth it.”

 Nobody had ever looked at Endeavour as if his face belonged against a backdrop of leaves and stars. And Endeavour had lived with Bixby long enough to have learned a few things: such as, when someone gave you a compliment, you weren’t supposed to shrug and say nothing. You were supposed to accept it, and return it, if you could. And Endeavour opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t quite say it. He couldn’t say for certain that he would do it all again. Even if that did mean his path would never collide with Bixby’s.

 

And yet, what did that matter, when it never could have been otherwise?

Bixby might believe in the green light, in cause and effect, in his own dauntless will, and in a hundred other fantasies. But Bixby was a freight train thundering down the rails, convinced that everything in his life had happened because he had made it so.

Endeavour knew things happened because they had to happen.

Morse was a river that had no other course but to tumble over the rocks in the way it had.

There could never be a Morse that would not have gone to Thursday’s aid. The idea that such a Morse might exist in some universe somewhere was appalling. It was like a circular triangle. It could not be.

Everything that happened was inevitable.

Or was it? Might there have been a Strange who could have called for backup right away, who could have rallied the troops in a way that Morse, with his difficult personality, could not?

 

No. Later there would be such a Strange. But not on that day.

 

“I need you to get every man you can trust over there now. City boys only. Do you understand?

“No can do, matey. Orders,” Strange said.

“Orders? What orders? From where?” Morse said.

“We’ve been told that if any calls come out from that way we’re not to respond. It’s come from ACC Deare.”

“I see,” Morse said. He handed him the newspaper sent to him by Miss Frazil.  

“What’s this?”

“If it all goes wrong, maybe everything. Deare. Chard. Everything. It’s all in there. I told you one day you would have to choose. Today is that day!”

 

Perhaps Morse’s role had not been to be the river that was Morse, but to change the course of the river that was Strange. After the river that was Morse crashed over the rocks, the river that was Strange would flow on—but it would not meander through the world of the Masons, become stymied in a thick bog of corruption and connections. It would be a river that was straight and true.

Strange had the potential to be one day Chief Superintendent of the city. How many lives might be changed because Strange had finally been forced to choose and had chosen rightly?

The next time there would be a cavalry. And Strange would be the one to lead it.

 

Endeavour stops typing. Well, that’s all quite maudlin, isn’t it?

 

And then, he hears it: a buzz of whispers to his left. The woman has moved over to the man’s desk. It’s most likely they are whispering about him, but he can’t think about that now. Because now he’s thought of something else, another conversation half-remembered. He begins again to type:

 

“There’s no cavalry coming. There’s still time. I won’t think the less,” Thursday said.

“No.”

“To the end, then?”  

“To the end.”

 

Those three words—did Morse know what they meant? Of course not.

But if it was true— that there was no universe in which Morse could have acted other than he had— what does that say about Pagan?

 

As he was escorted from his cell for the last time, Pagan took one look back at Morse, crumpled there on the floor. For one wild moment, Pagan felt that if he had a gun in his hand, he could have shot him—whether out of rage or to put him out of his misery, he wasn’t sure.

 “Come on, Morse, we haven’t got all day.”

Pagan turned and left.

 

As much as Pagan had come to hate Morse, what would he, Pagan, have done any differently? Would he not have come to Thursday’s aid?

“Of course, I would have done,” Pagan snorted. “Even Endeavour, who scarcely ever leaves the house, would have done as much, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Endeavour said.

What is the perfect Platonic form of a fir come?

 

Endeavour stops typing again. “What is the perfect Platonic form of a fir cone?” he muses aloud.  

The man and woman look at him once again. Then the man picks up the receiver of his phone. Endeavour’s heart begins to race. Whom is he calling? Is he calling to report him as an imposter? Surely, there’s no need—if it’s the police the young man wants, they are in a room full of them, aren’t they?

But no, out of the corner of his eye, Endeavour sees the man put the phone down and look up. The look of relief is clear on his face. He’s obviously seen someone coming into the station, someone he is glad to see.

Endeavour wonders who it might be, but he doesn’t look up. He’s just had another thought. He has to type it out before it melts away.

Again, his thoughts fall into rhythm with the clacking of the keys:  

 

Because the question is this:  if Pagan had abandoned Morse, left him behind at the prison, then who was it in the tree, beckoning for Bixby to step forward, directly toward a man who was holding a gun level with his heart?  

Who else but Morse would feel confident enough that right would win the day to have risked the only heart that had ever held room for him?

Endeavour would have thrown caution to the winds--kept running until he had either outrun them all or was caught or killed. Pagan would have worked himself into a fury, sprang from the tree too early, probably getting both he and Bixby shot in the process.  

 

Endeavour can feel the presence of someone standing before him, but he keeps typing. For he’s just realized something:

 

So. If Morse was in the tree, then perhaps I was Morse and I am still Morse. But then, why can’t I pick up where I left off? Why don’t I know what to do next?

Where is Morse now? Why doesn’t he help me as I sit and type and wonder what the hell I’m doing here in this unfamiliar and perplexing place?

 

Endeavour stops typing and sighs, considering the paper before him. Then he types a final sentence:

 

I suppose Morse always was a standoffish sod.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Jim Strange walks along the sidewalk to the Crown Pub and then veers left into a back alleyway. Thursday is there, standing in the narrow space, speaking to Constable Fellows, who holds a large camera topped with a three-tiered flash.

Strange waits for the two to finish their conversation, and soon, Thursday dismisses the constable, who sets off back to the main street. He gives Strange a respectful nod as he passes.   

Then, Thursday gestures for Strange to follow him further behind the pub. They round the corner and then come to a stop two or three feet away from the body, giving the sawbones room to maneuver.

“Doctor?” Thursday asks.

“Inspector,” DeBryn answers, before launching into his findings. “Adult Male. Early to mid-twenties. Died sometime between eight and midnight last night. Strangled. With a ligature. About the thickness of my finger. Sash cord, perhaps? He is as I found him, but postmortem lividity suggests he died on his front.”

DeBryn kneels by the body and tugs up the man’s shirt—across his stomach is a marking, like an X. 

“Note the marks on his torso,” DeBryn says.

“He’s been moved,” Strange says.

The doctor nods. “Within an hour or so of his decease.”

“Neighbor says she heard a car around three in the morning. Somebody dropping off the body, then?” Thursday muses. “It would fit, if he’s been moved.”

“I’ll be able to give you furthers and betters once I’ve opened him up,” DeBryn says. “Shall we say four sharp, then, gentlemen?”

“Doctor,” Thursday says.

********

 

“We had Constable Fellows out here taking a few photos,” Thursday says. “Only way to identify the poor sod, I suspect—he’s got no identification on him. Tell you what, you go over there and see if you can’t get a rush on things, and then I’ll meet you back at the nick, once I’ve gotten this business with Mrs. Pettybon out of the way. We’ll have a good parley about all this.”

“Mrs. Pettybon?” Strange asks. “The lady with the hat who's always on the telly? What business do we have with her?”  

“What’s this? You haven’t heard the news?” Thursday says with a sarcastic lilt to his voice. “We’re on babysitting duty.”

“Sir?” Strange asks.

“Mrs. Pettybon’s gotten a death threat in the mail, and the Chief Superintendent’s wife is a big fan. So now we’re on detail. Thought we might put Fancy on it. He can be spared, most likely.”

Strange nods. “Sir,” he says.

******

Strange picks up the snaps from Constable Fellows over at Oxford Station and then returns to the Thames Valley headquarters. He had a bit of a wait, but whether or not Thursday has arrived back is anyone’s guess. From what Strange has seen of Mrs. Pettybon on the telly, the old bird certainly seems fond of her own voice. The Inspector might be detained with her still.

As he walks through the station back toward his desk, he notices right away that something is off. For one thing, Trewlove and Fancy have their heads together over by the window, whispering in what looks all the world like a fairly intense conversation. Odd, that. She’d been giving him the brush off for weeks.

And for another, Fancy looks strangely relieved to see him.

Usually, it’s just the opposite. Usually, Strange coming into a room prompted Fancy to look alarmed, jump, grab a piece of paper, do something to look busy.

When the cat’s away the mouse would play.

But today, he looks positively ecstatic to have his sergeant pop by mid-day.

Strange looks at them and raises his brows questioningly.

That's when Trewlove looks pointedly over to her left. He follows her gaze.

Christ, some bloke was there, sitting at his desk. What’s this? Did they permit some strange man to waltz in off the street and commandeer his work area?

He begins to stride forward at a fast clip, through the aisles of desks. The man doesn’t look dangerous, at any rate. Fairly slight, crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows, light gray wool vest and a gray and light blue striped tie. The only thing odd about him is a pair of Italian movie star sunglasses perched up on his head, in a nest of reddish blonde hair. Some postgrad, maybe?

It would fit: He can type like the devil, that much was clear. Blimey, the way his fingers flew out over the keys, it was a wonder his old clunker of a machine wasn’t busting apart.

Strange looks at Trewlove again. So why have they let this bloke stumble in here? Why didn’t they simply send the man packing?  

She looks again at the man, widening her eyes.

As he draws nearer, Strange realizes that there’s something familiar about those narrow hands flying over the typewriter keys. And then he feels as if somehow, there’s something he’s not permitting himself to know.

He takes a breath. “Matey?’ he asks, uncertainly.

The man looks up.

 “Hello,” Morse says.

“Hello, matey.”

Well, Strange thinks. Blimey.

Strange looks at him in wonderment. This would be the time that anyone else would explain what the hell they were doing here, turning up after all of these years, but getting an easy answer out of Morse is too much to ask for, apparently.

Morse says nothing; he simply regards him blankly. Strange frowns. Best to start out with the small talk and see where that leads.

“Where’d you learn to type like that?” Strange asks. 

“Oh. Yes, I wasn’t much for typing, was I? Well, you know, one day I simply figured it out, I suppose. I think perhaps I struggled before because I was never typing my own words, was I? I was always typing up incident reports, or else writing papers and proposals for Bright.”

Strange clears his throat at this. He had always known that Morse wrote Mr. Bright’s papers for him, but leave it to Morse be impolitic enough to come out and say it out loud.

“At any rate,” Morse says. “I suppose I just got used to the music of the thing.”

“Music?” Strange asks incredulously. “On that sad old clunker?”

“Yes,” Morse says. “Here. Close your eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“Close your eyes.”

Strange hesitates, casts a quick glance over at Trewlove and Fancy. He hates to look a fool in front of the junior officers. But Morse is looking at him expectedly.

Well, only for you, Morse, he thinks. He closes his eyes.

Then, the keys strike up. _Pat pat clack pat clack pat-pat._

“There,” Morse says, “What does that sound like?”

It does sound a bit like rain, but that’s ridiculous. Strange opens his eyes. “Sounds like some bloke typing on a typewriter.”

Morse’s eyes narrow.  “Reeeaally?” he asks, momentously unimpressed. “Fascinating.”

Strange suddenly feels uncomfortable under that intense, assessing blue gaze.  

He clears his throat. “So, what brings you to Oxford then?”  

Morse tilts his head with a stubborn jerk of his chin. “I have a case. It’s a stolen satchel.”

“Oh?” This is certainly news to Strange. How is that even possible?

 “Whose stolen satchel?” Strange asks.

Morse hesitates. “Well, it’s mine.”

“You want to _report_ a stolen satchel, then,” Strange clarifies.

“No. I don’t want simply to “report” it. I want something _done_ about it.”

“This is Oxford, matey. We get lost bags all the time.”

“It’s not lost,” Morse says. “It’s stolen. And I have a fairly good idea by whom. Some pop group took it. They came to see me Thursday last. They wanted to ask if I’d be interested in a collaboration with them—if I would write some lyrics for one of their songs. I said no—very politely—and they left. But then, the next day, I noticed that my bag full of drafts for my publisher was missing. I had left it right on the table in the front hall when the group had arrived, and then, when they left, it was gone.”

Strange takes a moment to consider this. “So, you think they took some of your drafts, to use them as lyrics in a song?”  

“Yes,” Morse says.

“Huh. Sounds like you need a copyright lawyer, then.”

Morse stares at him incredulously. _“Copyright lawyer?"_  he shouts. His voice rings throughout the section; several officers stop what they are doing and turn to look, wondering, no doubt, why some post-grad is sitting at their sergeant’s desk, giving him the riot act. “I don’t want a copyright lawyer. There hasn’t been any infraction yet. That’s the whole point! I want to stop them before any such infraction occurs. I do _not_ want to hear my words parroted back to me in someone else’s ruddy pop song!”

Strange doesn’t know what to say. Morse was always so reserved; it’s off-putting somehow, to see him with his back up

“So why Oxford? If the bag was stolen, in— where do you live now, matey?”

“In France. Just south of Nancy. And I came here because they told me they were staying here. Out at a place called Maplewick Hall.”

“Hang on,” Trewlove says. “There is a pop group staying out at Maplewick Hall. I just saw it in the papers last week. The Wildwood.”

“Yes,” Morse says. “Purveyors of utter drivel, I must say.”

“But they are fantastic lyricists,” Trewlove says. “The critics have compared their work to James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Endeavour . . .” she stops suddenly mid-sentence, with an apologetic look at Morse.

Morse snorts. “Well, it should be awfully easy to compare their next song to something of mine, I would think,” he says tartly. “Since I will be the one who will have written it.”

Morse puts his hands over his face for a moment, pressing them hard against his cheekbones, as if he’s trying to keep himself together. Strange can’t see why he’d be so upset. Even he, Strange, who has been feeling his years since he began mentoring Trewlove and Fancy, has heard of The Wildwood. Most anyone else would probably feel as if they’d flown to the moon to be asked to write a song for them.

But then, Morse always was a pretentious arse about that sort of thing.

Morse takes his hands from his face and wrings them tightly together in his lap.

“They shouldn’t be able to take your words, should they?” he says, in a strangled voice. “There has to be something that’s yours that no one can take. Shouldn’t there? Otherwise, who are you? What’s left?”

Strange meets Trewlove’s eyes. Up until now, she hasn’t seemed to know what to make of Morse, but now, she looks troubled. Even Fancy, possibly the cheeriest bloke Strange has ever met, seems a bit down in the mouth, sympathetic to Morse’s plight.  

Meanwhile, Morse’s large eyes have swung back to Strange’s face. He seems to grow impatient that there’s no answer and slaps his hand on the desk. “The bag was stolen, right from my house. I don’t need to have to have passed my _sergeant’s_ _exam_ to know that that’s burglary,” he snaps. “What I want is a warrant.”

Then he pauses for a moment, looking utterly bewildered. “How . . . how do you get a warrant? Do we . . . We make out an affidavit, don’t we?” He looks at Strange questioningly. “Isn’t that right? You know? I’ve quite forgotten.”   

Strange considers him for a moment. There’s something familiar there . . . .

And then, it hits him like a ton of bricks. For he’s seen that lost look before. Not on features as refined as Morse’s—the faces on which he’s seen that expression are definitely more town than gown. Down at Eddie Nero’s boxing club—on some of the denser, two-bit thugs who have taken too many blows to the head. After too much time in the ring, they’re fit only to take orders, drive cars and deliver packages.

Strange takes a quick, appraising look at Morse’s nest of curls —they’re longer and wilder than when he had been in prison, but even then, they must have held a texture temptingly promising of an easy grip. How difficult would it be for another prisoner wanting to subdue Morse to walk up behind him, grab a handful of those curls, and knock his head against the wall?

Not difficult at all.

Strange remembers now how perplexed the old man was by Morse when he first came out of prison. _I don’t think I understand the lad, anymore._ He was erratic, unpredictable. And it was all put down to Morse’s inscrutability.

But perhaps the concerns Thursday aired during all those long months were not caused by the workings of a complex mind, but rather by something as simple as too many blows to the head?

But Morse wasn’t quite like Nero’s old has-beens, either, was he? For none of them had too much on the ball, most likely, to begin with.  Morse, though—even those who didn’t care for Morse couldn’t deny the man was brilliant.

And Morse being Morse, doubtless notices that something is wrong. But he’s developed a thousand excuses and a hundred compensations. And so, unlike Nero’s poor sods, he gets through the day well enough. Wins the National Award for Poetry, but he can’t remember where he left his book satchel.

Strange makes another leap. That bloke in the photos with Morse, the ones that Thursday had shown him of his and the missus’ holiday in France. He looked like a sharp one. Is it he who is behind the scenes, smoothing everything along?

He never had met Morse before Blenheim Vale, either, did he? He wouldn’t notice the difference. Probably puts Morse’s eccentricities down to just the products of an artistic temperament.

And Thursday? Well, it’s no secret that when it comes to Morse, Thursday has a blind spot a mile wide. Strange can hear him now, that mantra he kept up during the Corcoran case. “Morse is all right.” Was it others he was trying to convince? Or himself?

 

Strange realizes Morse is looking at him suspiciously. Blimey, if his eyes can’t be uncanny sometimes. It’s almost as if he knows what he’s thinking.

Well, one way or another, Strange is definitely over his head. This calls for backup if ever anything did.  Maybe he can get a hold of Thursday on the car radio.

“All right, then,” Strange says. “Tell you what, matey. You wait here and I’ll look into getting a warrant, then, all right?”  

The suspicion does not fade from Morse’s face. “All right,” he says.

Strange tries to give a reassuring nod. He tosses the photos and the report he’s been carrying down on the desk as he heads back to Thursday’s office to make the call.

Morse's gaze follows the motion of Strange’s hands. Then, he goes white.

“I know that man,” he says, his voice an octave higher than usual.

Strange scowls. It can’t be so. If Morse has been in France all this time, how would he know some chap found dead behind a pub?

“That’s Barry Finch. He was with them. With the Wildwood,” Morse says.  

“Well,” says Strange, kindly. “You’ve had a long trip, matey.”

Morse flushes at this. “No. No. He was at my house. He was their driver. I remember. I asked him what his name was, and he said “I’m just the driver.” I told him that that was an unusual name, that it must be even a greater trial to have such a name than mine. And then he told me he was called Barry Finch. Like the bird.”

This gives Strange pause. Morse certainly has been able to rattle off quite a few details in a short space of time. In Strange’s experience, that’s a fairly good indication that a witness is telling the truth.

“They killed him,” Morse says. “Oh, my God. They’re all just the same, aren’t they?”

Strange isn’t sure what to make of that—Morse seems to jump awfully quickly to the presumption of who he thinks “they” might be.

“Wait here. I’ll get a warrant. And we’ll go over there. Maplewick Hall, you said?”

“Yes,” Morse says faintly. “All right.”

Trewlove looks at him questioningly. Strange, just slightly, shakes his head.

He strides into the back office and closes the door.

“Thomas. Can you raise Thursday on the car radio?”

“Sergeant,” crackles a responding voice. There’s a buzz and a hum.

“Thursday here.”

 “Thursday? It’s Strange.”

“Strange. Sorry I’ve been so long delayed. On my way.”

“No, it’s not that. Morse is here.”

“What’s that, Sergeant?”

“Morse is here,” Strange repeats.

Thursday laughs, as if Morse has just stopped by to have a pint. He doesn’t appear to know that Morse seems to think that he’s reporting in for duty.  “Morse? You’re joking,” he says.

“No, sir. He’s right at my desk. He says . . . well, could you . . . ?”

“On my way Sergeant,” Thursday says.

******

Thursday doesn’t take long to get the station, thank Christ. Strange is quite relieved to see him—he’s always known how to handle Morse. They retire to Thursday’s office, where Morse tells his story:  how the group came to see him in Lorraine, how they asked him to write lyrics for a song, how he turned their offer down. Barry Finch, he said, was their driver, an unassuming young man who seemed a bit star-struck, perhaps a bit over his head.  

“They said they were staying in Oxford, at a place called Maplewick Hall,” Morse says.

“Well,” Thursday rumbles, “Certainly can’t hurt to take a poke around.”

Morse immediately jumps to his feet.

So that’s decided, then. No surprise there. Morse always had a way of getting the old man to go along with whatever theory he came up with.

“C’mon, then Morse,” Thursday says.

Morse and Thursday head out the door, and Strange follows, stopping in the doorway to watch them stride through the station, side-by-side—Morse’s lopping gait matching Thursday’s steady one, step by step.

The way they keep pace together, it’s just like old times, just like Morse never left. Strange huffs a laugh to himself. He wouldn’t be surprised if the old man had Morse’s warrant card somewhere.

Well. That’s that taken care of, then.

Strange sits down at his desk. In his typewriter, there’s a piece of paper, completely covered in type. Morse certainly had been going to town.

 Strange cranks the paper out.

  
It’s odd—it’s as if Morse is writing a story about going out on a case with Thursday—but it sounds a lot like the Edmund Corcoran case from back in ’67. That would have been impossible—Morse was not Thursday’s bagman at the time, he was one of Belborough’s crowd himself.

Then he’s on to the woods in Lorraine, and . . .

Eh. Well, that’s a bit more than he needs to know.

He’s about to toss the paper in the bin, when his own name calls out to him.

 

_“I need you to get every man you can trust over there now. City boys only. Understand?_

_“No can do, matey. Orders,” Strange said._

 

Christ, had he honestly said that?

Hmmmm. Actually, he was quite certain he had.

 

_“Orders? What orders? From where?” Morse said._

“ _We’ve been told that if any calls come out from that way we’re not to respond. It’s come from ACC Deare.”_

_“I see,” Morse said. He handed him the newspaper sent to him by Miss Frazil._

_“What’s this?”_

“ _If it all goes wrong, maybe everything. Deare. Chard. Everything. It’s all in there. I told you one day you would have to choose. Today is that day!”_

_Perhaps Morse’s role had not been to be the river that was Morse, but to change the course of the river that was Strange. After the river that was Morse crashed over the rocks, the river that was Strange would flow on—but it would not meander through the world of the Masons, become stymied in a thick bog of corruption and connections. It would be a river that was straight and true._

Blimey. Did Morse believe this? That he was destined somehow to be sacrificed just so that he, Strange, might learn the truth about those rotten bastards? What a terrible thing to think.

 

_Strange had the potential to be one day Chief Superintendent of the city. How many lives might be changed because Strange had finally been forced to choose and had chosen rightly?_

_The next time there would be a cavalry. And Strange would be the one to lead it._

 

Strange swallows. Suddenly, there’s a lump in his throat.  He never would have imagined that Morse thought so highly of him. He had always assumed that Morse struggled just to tolerate him, actually. Does he truly think he might be Chief Superintendent one day?

It’s a lot to live up to.

He remembers now, the last time he and Morse spoke, in Belborough’s study, when he had asked, perhaps to casually, about his time in prison. Strange realizes now that he might have been a bit insensitive. But he’ll stand by what he said.

It was the safest place he could have been.

Thursday could cut him all the dirty looks he wants, and the sawbones all the condescending ones, but the fact was this: whatever Morse may or may not have faced in prison, he is, at least, still here, living and breathing.

Or mostly here.

Strange knows now the depths of the rot, perhaps even better than the old man, who had never dipped his toe in their pool. The roving bands of men from County, the men who called themselves coppers but who were, in truth, simply thugs, would not have suffered to have left enough of Morse to bury, if he had been on the outside.

It only took one look at the car riddled with Chard’s bullets to attest to that.

Strange frowns to himself at the memory, then looks back at the paper.  His eyes wander further down the page, but the whole thing disintegrates: it’s fir cones and freight trains, and some sort of dialogue, a series of questions, between—what’s this then? Pagan, Endeavour and Morse?

What’s this? Strange is sure that Pagan was Morse’s nickname from Oxford—the old man was angry about that, muttering about how ill-fitting it was.

Is this Morse’s game, then? The gaps in memory, the mood swings, the loss of any sense of continuity from hour to hour—all the things he can’t quiet explain: it might be a big knot to untangle, too many pieces to sift through, to put together.

But breaking it all down into three smaller puzzles—might that be less overwhelming?

Strange wonders for a moment if he should show this to someone. _Is_ Morse all right, as Thursday had insisted?

But then he remembers Morse’s contempt for head shrinkers, his disdain for the man who had been introduced to them as Daniel Cronyn. If Morse was forced to speak to one of them, even if his odd behavior didn’t sink him, his attitude surely would.

And then what? Did Morse really need to be confined to another institution?

Strange skips down and reads the last line.

_You walked as gently as the rain even as the wood was unleaving._

Well, what do you know?

Rain.

 That was the answer.

He looks at the paper once more, memorizing the words about himself written there. He owes it to Morse to remember them.

Then he slowly crumples up the paper and throws it away.

He’s not quite sure if it’s the right move, but until he  _is_ certain, if his loyalty is going to tip in any direction, it’s only right that it fall in favor of Endeavour Morse.

*************

 

Thursday had always known the lad would come back. He was a copper through and through.

When Mr. Bright retired after his second heart attack, he had helped the old man clear out his office, and that’s when he found it, tenderly tucked away in his top drawer. It must have been returned to the station when Morse was sent to prison—a warrant card with a photo of an austere and solemn young constable and the inked-in name _E. Morse._

So, Mr. Bright had kept it all this time. Thursday felt a wave of affection for the older man.

“Mind if I hang on to this?” he asked Bright.

Bright gave him a long look. “Of course,” he said. “Of course.”

He took the card and tucked it inside his jacket pocket.

He still had it, in his odds and ends drawer back home. He knew all along that Blenheim Vale was not destined to be their last case. There was no way a bunch of depraved bastards like that sick lot would keep a team like theirs down forever.

It just felt right, having the lad back—there was an energy in the car that Thursday had been missing.

Thursday knows for all his experience, he has his weak points. His inclination to stick to his first supposition for one. His tendency to see kicking a few heads in as a fine solution to any number of problems for another. It’s just those weak points that Morse—deliberating thoughtful Morse, fills in.

And it all works in reverse as well: Whereas Morse might lose himself in a web of anagrams and inscriptions on pocket watches, Thursday’s long-honed instincts bring him back down to earth. And whereas it might take Morse five minutes of hoity-toity lecturing to make a point to a suspect, Thursday knows how to let them know just where they stand much more succinctly.

_Any comeback, I’ll have your cobblers for a key fob._

It must have been taking down those art thieves, Thursday thinks, that got the old juices going, got the lad thinking about returning to the force. He had done a good job of it, too. Thursday had felt right proud when Morse gave the one bastard what for.

He knew he had it in him all along.

He glances over at Morse, who is looking out the window disinterestedly.

It’s odd, though, seeing him without Bixby. Just a few months ago, when he had seen Morse last, he’d seemed to circle around the man, never getting outside of a certain radius.

Are they still together? It’s awkward to ask about it, make no mistake.

Eh, what the hell.

“Where’s Bix, then?” Thursday asks.

“Oh,” Morse says. “He’s in London, meeting with some partners about some such thing.”

“Got something on then, does he?”

 “He always has something on,” he says. “He said he would come along, but I told him not to bother.”

“Too right,” Thursday says. “We don’t need civilians in the way of police business.”

Morse looks at Thursday in wonderment. “Of course,” he says.

“Is Bixby staying in London?”

“No, he’s picking me up from the Cowley CID at four.”

“But the Cowley CID is gone, Morse.”

“I know,” he said. “I saw.”

Thursday furrows his brow, confused, “Won’t Bixby be wondering where you’ve got to when he sees what’s happened to the place?”

Morse snorts at this. “Not Bix. He’s like a human radio receiver. He probably had heard all about it before I walked over there and found out myself.”

There’s a silence, but a companionable one.

“Are you quite sure this is all right?” Morse asks.

“Well,” Thursday says. “You never put your papers in.”

“That’s certainly true enough,” Morse says.

****

They pull up to Maplewick Hall. What a pile. Thursday hasn’t been out to any place this ostentatious since the Corcoran case.

A butler greets them at the door and leads them back to a study.  

There, a man with curly dark hair half-rises from his desk. “Hello . . . ” he begins, taking an uncertain look at Morse, “. . . officers.” Then he pauses, tilts his head thoughtfully. “Aren’t you Endeavour Morse?”

“Oh,” Morse says. “Him. I mean, yes. I am.”

“I’m sorry,” the man says. “I think there’s been some mistake. I was told that you were with the police.”

Thursday steps forward, flashes his warrant card. “We are. Inspector Fred Thursday, Thames Valley.”

“Ralph Spender,” the man nods, extending his hand. “Manager of Wildwood.” He gestures for them to sit down. “May I offer you a cigar?”

“I won’t. Thank you,” Thursday says.

Spender sinks back into his chair. “What can I help you gentlemen with, then?”

“There’s been a body found. In back of a pub yard. A young man we think may be called Barry Finch. Do you know him?”

“Finch, did you say?” the man asks, a faint line creasing his brow “Yes, yes. He came up here with a man called Carter to do some work around the place. The boys took a liking to him. Hired him on as a driver.” Then he frowns more deeply. “Dead, did you say?”

“We have a photo we’d like you to take a look at. I must warn you—it’s postmortem.”

The man swallows, looks a bit faint. “All right,” he says.

Thursday hands him the photo, and Spender looks at it.

“Yes,” he says, finally. “Yes. That’s him. Good God. What could have happened? Was it an accident?”

“That’s just what we were hoping you could help us with,” Thursday says. “When’s the last time you’ve seen him?”

“Not for a few days,” Spender says. “I’ve been in London”

“Anyone confirm that?” Thursday asks.  

The man looks taken aback by the abruptness of the question. “My mother,” he says with a nervous laugh—and he’s not wrong—a mother’s word is not much of an alibi. “Phyllis,” he clarifies. “And Bruno. My driver. He dropped me off at home around seven, and then I spent most of the evening on the phone to America. First, New York and then later, California. We’re planning a big tour with the boys there. With the Kinks.”

He adds this last bit as if he expects them to be impressed, but Thursday couldn’t care less about the Kinks, and he doubts that Morse even knows who the hell they are.

Thursday rises from the chair. “Perhaps we might have a word with the band then. Ask when they’ve seen Finch last.”

“Of course,” Spender says.

******

Spender leads them to a room that is garish beyond all belief. There are red and paisley scarves tied around the necks of white marble Roman busts, paintings of every size and description covering almost every inch of wall space, shiny guitars and liquor decanters—and to top it all off, a tiger skin rug. The room is a whirlwind of color and clutter.

Morse’s eyes widen at the sight of the place, and he makes a disapproving face as if he is offended on any number of levels. Well, Thursday has no claim to any artistic sensibilities, but even he can see the place is gaudy as hell. Bixby’s place had been a little over the top for his tastes, but it was a bastion of class compared to this showy little den of bright objects.

As they walk into the room, they hear a cacophony of voices.

 “You can have Baudelaire and I’ll stick with Bo Diddly,” a man with a mop of wild hair roars, throwing a pair of sticks against a drum set with a loud crash. He storms out the French doors leading out to the garden.

A young man wearing a violet fedora watches him go, looking troubled. “Chris? Sort him out. Tell him I’m sorry, all right?” he says.

“You should tell him, man,” says a man with long hair, who follows the peevish drummer out the door.

“Boys? Boys?” Spender says. “These gentlemen want a word.”

Boys my arse, Thursday thinks. It galls him that lads younger than these spivs marched halfway around the world to put jerry back in his box just so these ponces could one day sit around throwing temper tantrums about some man called Baudelaire.

 Meanwhile, a man with dark, unkempt hair has spotted Morse; his eyes widen in recognition. “Endeavour, man. Knew you’d change your mind when you thought it over,” he says.

Thursday can feel Morse stiffen beside him. _Endeavour, man?_ Thursday thinks. It’s certainly odd to hear the lad’s name tossed about like that, when it was once a fact kept as secret as information on Soviet stockpiles.

“We’re here on another matter,” Morse says crisply.  

Thursday shows his warrant card. “Inspector Thursday, Thames Valley.”

“Ken Wilding,” the man answers. He jerks his head in the direction of the younger man in the hat, who is standing behind a keyboard. “This is my brother, Nick. What’s all this about?”

“It’s Finch,” Spender says. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?” Ken Wilding says. “What happened?”

“It appears he was murdered,” Thursday says.

Ken Wilding casts a quick look over at his brother. It happens in a flash, but Thursday takes note of it.

“When is the last time you saw him?” Thursday asks.

“He was here till about eight o’clock last night.” Ken says.  

“It was about quarter to,” says a young blonde girl, who is squatting down in the corner, as if trying to stay out of the fray.

 “And you are?” Thursday asks.

“Pippa.  Layton.”

“The girls help out as seamstresses with the boys’ stage clothes,” Spender supplies.

“Is that right?” Thursday rumbles. Seamstresses. Oh, yes, that’s quite probable.

What rubbish.

 

“How old are you?” Thursday asks.

“Eighteen,” the girl says. She hesitates and then adds, “Next birthday.”

“And you Miss?”

“Emma Carr,” says the other girl. She’s bolder than her friend, meets Thursday’s gaze in challenge. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Course you aren’t,” Ken Wilding says, a trace of belligerence in his voice that Thursday feels is particularly unwise. “It’s a free country.”

“Did anyone see which direction Mr. Finch went when he left?” Thursday asks.

“He said he was going to hitch a lift back into town, didn’t he?” Spender prompts.

Thursday swings his gaze back to Spender, narrows his eyes. “I thought you said you were in London.”

Spender looks a bit stunned for a moment. “Yes, I think Ken told me. Didn’t you Ken?”

Ken blinks stupidly for a moment. “Yeah, that’s right,” he says, just a beat too late. “That’s what he usually did when he stayed on late. Nothing at all out of the ordinary there.”

Thursday hums noncommittally.

Thursday turns back to Spender. “How about the others?”

 

******  
Spender goes outside and calls in the two men who had stormed out. A young woman trails in behind them.

“What happened to him, to Barry?” asks the man with the long hair.

“That’s what we’re here to find out, Mr. …?”

“Sorry,” he says, extending his hand.  “Christopher Clark.”

Well, Thursday thinks, this one has some manners at least.

The other man nods. “Stix, the drummer.”  

The young woman stays in her place by the door. “Anna-Britt,” she says. “Chris’ wife. Although for some reason we aren’t allowed to tell anybody.”

“It’s bad for business,” Spender explains. “Fans don’t like to know that the boys are married.”

“I thought Nick was staying late last night, wasn’t he, for a swim?” Anna-Britt asks.

“No,” Stix says, glancing at Ken. “I think he left earlier.”

While Thursday’s been doing all the talking, Morse’s assessing eyes have been swinging around the place like large blue searchlights, seeming to widen slightly at every inconsistency.

Morse is too right. Thursday wonders now if they should have taken these bastards in a room and questioned them one by one. Their story would have blown apart like a house of cards.

Course, while he had the first tucked away, the others would have ample chance to get their heads together, cook up some plan. First instincts usually are the right ones. It’s best this way, watching them startle and frown and nod at one another. Their story unravelling right in front of them.  Once they find the right thread to pull, they’ll have their arses right in the fire.

“Where did Finch live then? Did he have any family?”

“Ah, yes,” Spender says. “He lived with his mother, I believe. I’ll have the address in my office.”

Thursday squares his shoulders, and lowers his voice until it’s a low rumble.

“I certainly hope for your sakes that you’ve been giving us the whole truth. If I find one scrap of evidence pointing your way, I’ll be back to take this place apart brick by brick. Understood?”

He gives them a final look, and he’s not disappointed. They all look as jumpy as cats in a room full of rocking chairs.

“Mind how you go, then,” he says and turns to leave.  

Then, he abruptly turns back. “Oh, and one other thing. Heard you all have been out to France.”

“Yeah,” says Ken, “To see him.”  He jerks his head toward Morse.

“Pick up anything while you were there? Nice bottle of wine? A snow globe of the Eifel Tower? Or maybe a satchel full of Morse’s poems to give you some-ready made lyrics for a new chart-topper?”

Again, it happens in a flash,  A pall seems to fall over the group—Stix and Christopher look down. Nick looks over to Ken, his brow furrowed.

“What’s this, then?” Nick asks.

“My bag. I had left it on the table in the hall. After you all left, it was gone,” Morse clarifies.

“No,” Nick says. “We wouldn’t take your work without asking you if it was all right. That’s not cool. Why do you think we went all the way to France? What do you take us for?”

Nick looks at the others questioningly, as if he’s waiting for them to back him up, but they all seem to avoid his gaze.

“I suppose I don’t know,” Morse says “All I know is, I didn’t think I necessarily had to hide the silver when you all came in, but my bag was there and now it’s gone, so there you are.”

Ken flicks a look of concern at Nick. As with the case of Barry Finch, Ken seems to think a best defense is a good offense.

“Listen, mate. You can’t come in here and say we took the thing. And even if we did, we’d be doing you a big favour. Drag you into the seventies. What’s that other bloke you’re so fond of, with the weird name, Nick? Dante Gabriel Rossetti? He probably would think he’s above writing a rock song, too. But you don’t see him doing any little tours in bookshops and racking up honorary degrees, do you?’

Morse looks positively aghast at this. “I should hope not,” he says.

Nick murmurs, “He’s dead, Ken.”

“What?”

“He’s dead. Rossetti.”

“For eighty-eight years, actually,” Morse says.

“Oh,” Ken says. “Well.” 

 “If you do happen to see it among all those fanciful curiosities you’ll be good enough to call me?  Won’t you?” Morse says. “You can reach me at Thames Valley Constabulary.”

With that, they turn to go. 

********

“Thank you. For asking,” Morse says, once they are back in the car. “About the bag. I wasn’t going to bother. It felt wrong somehow. Considering.”

“That’s all right. If we can’t hang them for a sheep, we might at least hang them for a lamb.”

“You think then, they’ve done something to be hung for, then?”

Thursday casts him a look, “Do you think Barry Finch left this place alive?”

Morse raises his eyebrows, furrowing his brow. “Do you?”

Thursday snorts. “They’re a rum lot and make no mistake. And I don’t trust that manager any further than I can throw him.”

“Hmmmmm,” Morse says. “It’s definitely about the money with him, that much is obvious. I think he might very well do anything to keep his cash cow on its feet.”

He looks for a while out the window.

“I wonder sometimes,” he muses. “Why I bother. Reeling Bixby in. Maybe he might as well do what he wants. Everyone else does.”

Thursday isn’t sure what to make of that. The man seems honest enough, and Thursday trusts Morse on that score to take Bixby at face value, even to the point of he and Win staying in the man’s home. But as much as he’s disposed to like Bixby, in Thursday’s experience, a man rarely manages to accumulate that extravagant degree of wealth without cutting some dodgy corners somewhere.

Best if he doesn’t know the details.

“You don’t mean that, Morse,” he says, gently chiding.

“No,” Morse muses. “I suppose I don’t.”

**********

When they return to Thames Valley, Sgt. Strange is out in front of the place, waiting.

“The doc said four o’clock,” Strange says. “He’ll be none too pleased if we’re late.”

 “Oh,” Morse says. “Are you going to the autopsy?  I’ll come with you.”

Thursday looks at him sharply. Is he quite serious? He didn’t see anything wrong with taking the lad out to a house, but to an autopsy? That’s rather pushing things.

Just then, there’s a shout from behind him.  

“Hey there, Josephine!”

Thursday shakes his head. The lads these days, the way they holler. Win and her friends would have kept on walking, make no mistake.

“Josephine!”

But then, to Thursday’s surprise, Morse looks up in answer.

“What?” he calls.

Thursday turns. It’s Bixby. And Christ, what the hell is he driving? Some electric blue number.

Bixby slows the car down to a crawl. “Fancy meeting you here. Have you heard the Cowley CID is being completely gutted?” he asks.

“Even I managed to notice that, funnily enough,” Morse says.

Well, this was just the distraction Thursday needed.

“Where are you staying?” Thursday asks.

“At the Randolph, old man,” Bixby says.

“No, you’re not, you’re staying with me and Win, you are. Go get your things and come round to the house.”

Morse opens his mouth to protest—no doubt they’re all about to drown in a steady stream of hemming and hawing ‘we couldn’t possibly imposes.”

But Bixby cuts him off. “Splendid old man.”

Morse dithers on the kerb, seemingly surprised that he’s been overruled.

“But the autopsy . . . Shouldn’t I . .”

“I think that’s enough of getting you getting your feet wet for one day, Constable.”

He means it as a casual dismissal, but perhaps that last was a bit too far. Morse scowls as if he’s suddenly suspicious that Thursday’s just been humoring him for the entire afternoon.

Which isn’t quite true. It was just like old times having Morse out with him on an inquiry. He had forgotten how every thought flying across Morse’s face gave Thursday an extra boost of confidence, assuring him that he was, indeed on the right track.

But an autopsy? Thursday can’t put his finger on it, but the thought makes him uneasy. He doesn’t want the lad to see that. No. For that, he wants him behind the hat stand.

A car pulls up behind Bixby, and the driver taps the horn.

“Well, come on, Josephine, get in. I’m creating a snarl-up here,” Bixby calls.

Morse frowns. “You know, you may as well have let me come along. You know I’m going to find out everything anyway,” he says. And with that, he swings himself into the car and slams the door.

The stroppy blighter.

Same old Morse. 

Beside him, Thursday can feel the waves of uncertainty emanating off of poor Jim Strange.

 

“Josephine?” Strange whispers, bewilderedly.

He can’t blame the lad.

He doesn’t much want to know, either.

 

What the hell. He chances a glance over at Strange.

 Huh.

He was expecting to see his stolid sergeant looking dumbfounded, but instead he’s looking oddly shrewd.

That’s interesting.

“Penny for them?” Thursday asks.

Strange shrugs. “Just thinking where I might go for a pint and some fish and chips later on.”

After an autopsy? Christ, Thursday, thinks. The lad is as steady as they come. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

Endeavour swings himself into the car and slams the door.

“Don’t call me that in front of other people,” he says.

Bixby laughs. It certainly is an oddly specific way of phrasing the demand.  “Don’t call you that in front of other people?” Bixby asks. “Or not at all?”

“I told you,” Endeavour says. “Josephine’s not real.”

“Jesus,” Bixby says. “I should hope not.”

Bixby turns to consider him. He certainly seems to be in a sour mood. He doesn’t look like himself at all, all slouched down in the passenger seat, his face set in a stubborn scowl.

“Any leads on your bag?”

“No,” Endeavour says.

 

Well, that was a particularly lively conversation.

 

At a stoplight, two women walking along the sidewalk look up at Endeavour. They glance at him and then at one another, as if they are trying to work out if he is who they think he is. Endeavour gives them an unfocused smile. When the light goes green, he gets out the pair of sunglasses Bixby had given that morning and puts them on. 

“I like these after all,” Endeavour says. “Scarcely anyone looked at me.”

“I thought that would help. Your eyes are pretty much your most distinguishing feature, I’d say,” Bixby says.

“And they make everything feel like it’s happening far away.” Endeavour adds. “Like you’re watching the world through a tunnel.”

Bixby frowns. Well. All right.

 

When they had first left for England, Bixby had thought that perhaps returning to Oxford might be the best thing for Endeavour.

He could never quite put his finger on it, but sometimes it seemed to him that something odd had happened on the plane to France.

 

At one point in the flight, not long after take-off, it almost seemed as if Endeavour had had some sort of fit. He went pale, suddenly; his eyes didn’t look like they were focusing properly.

When Bixby had asked him if he was all right, Endeavour had said that there must not be enough oxygen in the cabin, that they were too high into the atmosphere. But that was absurd. The cabin was pressurized after, all.

Endeavour looked almost ready to jump out of the plane. Of course, Bixby had to put himself in his shoes. Would he, if he were Endeavour, go off with himself, a person without any verifiable past, to a foreign country without a penny in his pocket?

Certainly not.

 

Endeavour, as Pagan, had been angry and cynical, all too ready to tell anyone and everyone to go straight to hell. He clearly hadn’t trusted Bixby in the slightest. Even after their first few rendezvous in the woods, Bixby would wake to find himself alone, Pagan long gone.

Bixby remembers the night that Pagan had kneed him in the diaphragm, left him breathless, disappeared into the trees like a bird in a rustle of leaves—and the wild moment in which Bixby had imagined himself in a garden, with a handful of seeds. How he had thought that if one sat perfectly still, waited long enough, one might coax a bird to land on the palm of one’s hand.

 

Had that strategy worked then, perhaps a little too well?

Because once they got to France, it seemed, Endeavour began to turn in a complete 180.

 

While Pagan had glared at Bixby with an odd mixture of suspicion and desire, Endeavour seemed to look at him with an inordinate amount of faith, as if he had complete trust in his ability to make all things right. It was as if, in his eyes, Bixby had finally become the larger-than-life, semi-mythical persona he had sought to create all those years ago.

Unfortunately, neither Pagan’s wariness or Endeavour’s confidence was fully in line with reality.

He wasn’t quite the fraudulent bastard Pagan had assumed he was; his history might be the stuff-of make believe, but his love was not.

But he was not the magician Endeavour had somehow come to believe in, either.

Surely, there was a balance between “Leave me alone, I don’t need a warden,” and, “Get rid of those odd-looking people while I go hide upstairs.”

Or, in other words, “Be my warden.”  
 

But, perhaps the fault lay not with Endeavour. Perhaps he needed to make that leap of faith, to justify following Bixby to another country. And, after all, how else was one to take Joss Bixby? You either believed in the smoke and mirrors, took him at face value, or declared him an utter sham.

The irony was—Bixby’s empire was solid now. He did nothing on credit. He had bank accounts busting with ready cash; he invested only in certain bets. His businesses were now all completely legitimate. And he had Endeavour, who was as genuine as they came—the real, warm weight at his side.

Joss Bixby had served his purpose well. Gotten him just what he wanted.

Too bad now he was stuck with him.

Well, that was a matter for another day.

 

Thursday’s invitation was a godsend, that much was clear.

Because, now, Bixby realizes this all could be a disaster.

 

If Bixby bobbed about in Endeavour’s wake, attempting to anticipate and prevent any possible catastrophes, then what was the point of coming here at all?

But what would happen if he went off to London, was detained, was late getting back to Oxford? What would happen if a porter found Endeavour sleeping in a damned closet? Or worse, if some poor valet from room service came into the room by mistake after dark, and Endeavour perceived him as a threat? Knocked him to the ground and kneed him in the diaphragm?

 

Endeavour wasn’t particularly fond of large places filled with strange people.

So what had he been thinking, bringing him to a hotel? The place held the potential to spawn any number of unfortunate scenarios.

 

And the fact was, if some unfortunate incident were to occur in Bixby’s absence, if, say . . . .  and it came to pass that Endeavour was arrested, submitted to some sort of psychological tests . . . found to be . . . say . . .

In such a situation, there would be nothing Bixby could do.

 

Endeavour happily signed his checks over to Bixby, was content to have all of their accounts in Bixby’s name, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Somehow, he didn’t seem to realize they had no legal relationship whatsoever.

If, say .  . .  not that it should ever happen . . . he _is_ fine _,_ after all . . .  well, basically . . . but if a court would ever . . .  let’s just say, feel the need to appoint him a legal guardian, it certainly wouldn’t be Bixby. Legally, his next of kin would most likely be his stepmother, a woman whom Bixby had never even met, whom Endeavour had not seen in at least three years.

 

 

Endeavour was watching him, a crease between his brow, looking troubled.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Bixby says.

Endeavour looks unconvinced.

Bixby smiles. “Let me ask you this then: If Josephine is not real, why did you answer to it?”

“Simple. Because I recognized your voice. You are so loud, one can hear you from halfway down the street.”

“Even when you’re half-asleep you answer to it. I’ve tried it out.”

“You’re fairly loud when you first wake up, too,” Endeavour says.

“Nice try,” Bixby says. “I’ve tried other random names, and nothing. But if I say, ‘Josephine?’  It’s ‘Hmmmmmm? What?””

 “Goodness. You seem to have quite a lot of time on your hands. One wonders how you manage to keep your vast empire afloat.” 

Bixby glances over at him. There’s a certain obstinate cast to his face that Bixby hadn’t seen before.

Or, maybe, once he had. Long ago, on a dock, as Endeavour seethed about Harry Rose.

“What’s the matter? Has something happened today?”

“Barry Finch is dead,” Endeavour says.

_“What?”_

“Barry Finch, you remember, the driver, who was with The Wildwood, when they came to France.”

“I remember,” Bixby says. “The one who should watch out for grackles, you said.”

“Yes,” Endeavour says. “I did say that.”

“What happened?” Bixby asks.

Endeavour sighs. “I don’t know. Thursday wouldn’t let me go to the autopsy.”

 “Is that down to him?" Bixby asks. "I wouldn’t think you would be allowed. You’re not actually . . .

“I’m not actually a police officer, I know,” Endeavour says. Then he turns and watches the road. “I never put my papers in,” he adds, mutinously, under his breath.

 

Bixby isn’t so sure about this. This was supposed to be about Endeavour getting his bag back. He didn’t much like that idea Endeavour had, of just giving up and letting the ponces take his poems, denying that he ever wrote them.

But does he really need to be involved in a murder investigation? Especially in a case like this, one that resonates throughout the years with an all too familiar echo?

“Maybe we should go back to France,” Bixby says.

“What?” Endeavour says. “We can’t leave now. This was all your idea to begin with. All of your doing, actually.”

“That’s a bit of a leap, surely. How is that so?”  Bixby asks.

“If you had been in Paris or Stuttgart that day, and I saw those strange people out front, I never would have answered the door, that’s how. We wouldn’t have come here at all, known anything about it.”

“Hmmmmmmmmm,” Bixby says “What would you have done then? Hid upstairs and watched out the window till they left?” he asks this as a joke, trying to show Endeavour how ridiculous this sounds.

But he must have failed to make his point, because Endeavour simply answers, “Yes. That is precisely what I would have done.”

Well. A thirty-one-year old man shouldn’t be afraid to answer his own front door for God’s sakes.

Maybe it was for the best that they came.

They’d get this all sorted out in the end.

Bixby was a man who knew how to wait.

****

At the hotel, Endeavour watches in open amusement as Bixby packs.

He never did have a knack for packing light.

“I certainly hope the Thursdays have room in their house for all of this.”

“Ha ha, old man.”  

“I wonder why you jumped so at the invitation. Don’t you think it will be all rather awkward?” Endeavour asks.

“They stayed with us,” Bixby shrugs.

“We have a staff. You do know we will have to be polite. Offer to help with the washing up and such.”

“I know how to wash dishes,” Bixby says.

“Do you?” Endeavour says. “That’s interesting.”

 

******

 

As he stands in the cold mortuary, Thursday understands why he didn’t want Morse to come.

It wasn’t just the questionable legality of the situation. No. It was something more visceral.

And now that he sees the corpse of Barry Finch, he knows just what it is. He’s heard this story before, after all.

Working-class kid in a high-flying crowd. Same old.

 

_We stood for a long time. Just there around the fire. Henry recited an old prayer, then he started reciting it faster and faster. I don’t know. Everything started to change. Everybody looked different. It was awful, honestly. And I just turned and ran.”_

_“You what?”_

“ _I ran and ran. I ran away from all of them, all right? It was all just sort of awful.”_

 _“How was it awful?_ ”

_Morse shuddered. “They all looked different. Their expressions. I heard things. Saw things. The moon looked like it was racing across the sky. I just. I don’t know. I just wanted to get away from all of them. So I ran. I ran and ran and the next morning I woke up in a field somewhere miles away in a ridiculous bedsheet. It was all just sort of awful”._

 

Thursday has seen Morse chase after a suspect; he may look a bookish sort, but he’s all arms and legs—he can run like the wind, make no mistake.

And but for that, he may not ever have met Morse at all.

Or, rather, they would have met. Right here, in fact. In this very room. Back in 1957. As a more newly-minted detective inspector and a nameless, teen-aged corpse dressed in a homemade Greek tunic.

“Here’s fun,” Dr. DeBryn begins.

Fun my arse, Thursday thinks. Sometimes he honestly does not understand the man.

“The late Barry Finch. Brickie’s labourer-turned-chauffeur to the stars,” DeBryn continues. “Cause of death. . . “

“The strangulation,” Thursday supplies, tonelessly. He’s not in the mood for DeBryn today. Not in the mood for anyone. Because it might not just have been Morse lying there.

 

For all he knows, his Joan could be laid out like this somewhere, right now. Two months and not even a phone call.

 

“Oh, he was strangled, yes,” DeBryn says crisply. “But that’s not what killed him. His heart gave out. The strangulation occurred perimortem, on or about the moment of death.”

“He was already dying,” Strange says.  “But couldn’t the strangulation have caused the heart seizure?”

“Certainly. When sudden pressure is put on the vagus nerve in the neck, instantaneous death can occur. But if he had been alive, one might expect to find abrasions, the victim’s own skin under his fingernails, as he struggled to free himself.”

“But there’s nothing,” Thursday says. It’s a statement rather than a question, but he can see that must be where the doctor is headed.

“Nothing,” DeBryn confirms.

“Why strangle a dying man?” Strange muses.

“That’s your department, thankfully. I’m more concerned as to what would stop the heart of an otherwise fit 24-year-old,” DeBryn says.  

With that, the doctor covers the body carefully, with a bit of a sorrowful air. Thursday feels a wave of empathy for the man. At least Thursday can get out on the beat, out on a case, get some of his aggression out by knocking some heads together. DeBryn is pretty much locked in a room with death the entire working day.

Meanwhile, Strange is looking at the doctor as if he’s building up the courage to ask some question. Thursday can see it on his face. Christ, the lad is transparent.  Finally, Strange pops out with it.

 “I was wondering,” Strange asks, “what do you know about head injuries?”

“Well, Sergeant, seeing as I did go to medical school, rather a lot. What was it you wanted to know?” DeBryn asks.  

“Are there any long term effects, say, from too many blows to the head?" Strange asks. 

DeBryn raises his eyebrows. And Thursday doesn’t blame him: What’s this to do with Finch?

But then, DeBryn’s impassive expression returns, and he answers. “The effects of a concussion are typically short-termed, but there can be long-range effects when a second injury is sustained before symptoms of a first are resolved. And in the case of repeated head injuries, that possibility increases. Anxiety, memory loss, mood fluctuations, confusion, early onset dementia. It’s a delightful little list. Is this for yourself, you are asking?”

Strange scowls. “It’s nothing to do with me. It’s about a friend.”

“I see,” DeBryn says, a bit wryly.

Thursday finds himself growing annoyed with this banter. None of it is any joking manner, as far as he is concerned. “If you’re all done playing twenty questions, we’ve got one more stop to make now that everything is confirmed. You’ll just have to wait for your fish and chips, Sergeant.”

“Sir,” Strange says.

******

Mrs. Finch stands in the hallway, her arms crossed before her. “You take whatever you like,” she says “Just find who did it. You find who hurt my baby.”

“Yes ma’am. We will,” Thursday says, just like he’s said a hundred times before. It feels like it never ends, sometimes.

******

“Looks like he was quite the fan,” Strange says, looking about the room. The walls are plastered with posters of pop bands, mostly The Wildwood, the four young lads that he and Morse met earlier, posing in poster after poster like fashion models, their images multiplied around the room.

Thursday looks on Finch’s dresser. A comb. A few books. A poetry book by Baudelaire. He thumbs through it, looking for an inscription. Some book called _Justine._ And. Ah. Look at that. Morse’s book.

“I’ll be . . ." Strange says. "Blimey." 

Thursday looks up. “Sergeant?”

Strange is standing by the closet, holding up a leather satchel.

“It looks sort of expensive, doesn’t it?” Strange asks. He opens it.  “Look. Here’s a label. _Casini. Firenze_ ,” he reads. “That’s Florence, isn’t it? Looks a bit dear for a driver. You don’t think it can be . . .”

“It sure looks like his. What’s in it?” Thursday asks. “Any papers or notebooks?”

“No,” Strange says, perplexed. “There’s just a fir cone, and eh, what? Looks like some half-eaten pastry. It’s gone all moldy. It’s a bit of a mess, this is.”

Thursday rolls his eyes. “That’s Morse’s.” He takes the bag and looks inside it. “Christ, he’s sloppy. God knows why Bixby bought him this thing. Should have just gotten him something from Woolworth’s and saved himself a pot of money, what with the way Morse treats his things. Trailed it around with him all the time when we saw him in France.”

Strange raises his eyebrows. “If you say so, sir,” he says, as if to say he doesn’t care to discuss what gifts Bixby should or shouldn’t buy for Morse, as if he’s keen to keep well out of it.  

***********

When Thursday comes home, he finds Win in the kitchen, slicing carrots.  

“Morse and Bix here yet?” he asks.

Win looks confused. “Should they be?”

“They’re here in Oxford. I told them to come on over and stay at ours.”

Win’s face lights up in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me, Fred?” She turns and looks in the fridge, doubtless calculating whether or not she has enough in to feed up her guests. “Endeavour has come all the way to Oxford?” she muses, as she takes inventory. “I am glad. Poor lamb. It was sad to see him so quiet, just when he seemed to be doing so well.”

“What’s this?” Fred says. “Morse is all right.”

Win frowns. “You saw the change in him. He seemed so happy that day we went to Paris, and then, after he got away from those thieves and got back home, he was so subdued it just about broke my heart.”

“Hmmmm,” Thursday hums noncommittally.  That’s not quite how he remembers it. He thought Morse seemed fine when he got home. Sure, he wasn’t as talkative as he had been that day in Paris, but it wasn’t unlike Morse, to keep quiet if he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“Seemed fine to me," Thursday says. “Besides, Morse wasn’t fussed about all that. You should have seen the way he took down that one bastard in the woods. He had the situation under control the whole time.”

“He wouldn’t even leave the house, Fred. Bixby couldn’t even get him to go out to the garden,” Win protests.

Thursday snorts at this. “That was because Bixby kept needling him about it. That’s the best way to be sure Morse will never do what you want. Most likely, the first day Bix went off on business somewhere, Morse went out for a pint.”

“I didn’t think he was needling him. I thought he just meant to be encouraging,” Win says, returning to her carrots.

 

Well. Just goes to show. How can two people be married this long and have such a different interpretation of the same event? Be that as it may. It doesn’t do to try to analyze others so, put your friends and family under a microscope, as it were.

“Either way,” Thursday says, “it’s not for us to go sticking our noses in other people’s . . . ,” he’s not sure how to finish the sentence. “Whatever it is,” Thursday adds with a laugh.

Win seems to have felt the word he would have used with anyone else on the tip of his tongue, because suddenly she smiles and says, “Wouldn’t it be lovely if they could get married?”

“Married?” Thursday barks a laugh at this.

“Why not?” Win asks.

Thursday shakes his head, fondly. That’s his Win. Wants to see everyone settled. Even when it goes beyond all reason.

He’ll never understand the vicious hatred people such as Mrs. Pettybon have for men like Morse and Bixby, and he’s certainly seen enough in the army and in the police to have learned not to jump to preconceived notions about a man—you never could tell who might be batting for the other team, or, as seemed to be the case with Morse and Bixby, batting for either team, for that matter.

But still, he had to admit, it did take him a while for him to wrap his head around the fact that Morse might be that way. Later, it seemed plausible, after all, considering all his artistic pretentions and that veneer of difference that always seemed to hum about him.

It felt like a betrayal to think so, but Bixby was actually the bigger puzzler on that score—he might be fairly polished these days, but Thursday could tell by the breadth of the man’s hands that he’d known a hard day’s labour at some point in his life. And he didn’t know any more about art and such things as Thursday did.  

But, at the end of the day, it wasn’t as difficult to get used to the idea as he would have thought. Morse was still Morse, after all.

 But married?

“That’s ridiculous,” Thursday says.

“Why is it ridiculous?” Wind asks.

Thursday laughs again. That’s easy enough.  “Which one of them would wear the dress?”

Win shakes her head, “It’s nothing to do with wearing a dress, Fred.” She rolls her eyes and adds the carrots to a shepherd’s pie. “I’m just glad to hear Morse is out and about,” she muses. “Poor lamb.”

Thursday snorts a bit at that. Morse is all right.

He knows who she’s really fretting over is Joan.

Thursday feels his jaw clench a bit at the thought.

Well, if poor-lambing Morse helps to take her mind off of Joan’s absence for a while, Morse can bloody well let himself get poor-lambed.

 

“What’s brought them here? To Oxford? Bixby have some business in London?” Win asks.

“Bit of a long story, that. Some pop group came out to visit Morse, wanted him to write some lyrics for them. Morse told them no, so the buggers took his whole bag of drafts. Morse came to try to get them back. He went down to the station.” Thursday huffs a laugh. “Strange had to hail me on the car radio. Evidently, he told Strange he had assigned himself to the case.”

He shakes his head fondly at the audacity of the thing. Coming back after three years and taking a seat like nothing had happened.

He always knew Morse would come back.

But Win doesn’t seem to see the humor in the situation. “Endeavour at the station? Is that on?”

Thursday shrugs. “Well, on or not, he turned up.”

Win slides the pie into the oven. “Most likely they’ll be by in a bit then. Why don’t you go and watch your match for a while? It’s Britain versus Spain tonight, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm,” Thursday rumbles. “You’re right.”

It is supposed to be a good match, but there is something he wants to do first.

 

He goes upstairs to his room, and opens the odds and ends drawer in his bureau; it takes a minute of rummaging, but he finds it: Morse’s old warrant card. He flips it open. There is Morse, as he was five or so years ago. He’s surprised, really, how different he looks: all stubborn chin and solemn eyes looking almost insolently into the camera. He looks more confident somehow, but also more detached, more solitary. He doesn’t look much the same at all.

But then, Thursday thinks of the photo in his warrant card, taken eight years ago now. The man in that photo had a daughter who seemed to think he could get her the moon if she asked for it, not a daughter who seemed to never want to speak to him again.

Morse and Joan. Joan and Morse. Both of them, somehow, had grown away from him, become different people when he wasn’t looking. Once, he was part of their lives each day, there to cheer their triumphs, there to help them shrug off their defeats.

Then, he was in hospital.

When he came out, he felt old, suddenly. Joan had been a rock for her mother, had grown into a competent, dependable young woman while he was completely oblivious, out for the count. She had gotten a new job, even wore her hair a bit differently.

In the mornings, by the time he staggered downstairs, coughing and weak as a kitten, she was long gone, off to work. She spent more and more evenings out with friends.

It was as it should be, he knew, but somehow it felt as if the change had been too sudden, had taken him a bit by surprise. It was as if years had passed while he was in hospital instead of only a month.

And then Morse. Morse had completely disappeared.

And then there was the consolidation. Soon new constables arrived, ones who had never known Morse or Bright or the Cowley CID.

 

He felt guilty about how glad he was when McWilliams left for the Met, because he was a good man, but it was the chance he’d been waiting for. He’d gone right over to Oxford Station and offered Strange the job at Thames Valley.

He was solid, Strange. Sure, the man could set his teeth on edge at times, but it wasn’t as if that was too hard a feat to accomplish these days. The fact was: Strange was as dependable as a Swiss train. It would be a cold day in hell before Strange would disappear, only to turn up months later, running about with some posh set, tangled hair full of leaves and reeking of Scotch.

Thursday looks at the warrant card again. What is Morse’s legal status anyhow? Did the higher ups ever officially terminate him? Or is he still on the books? It might have suited them just fine, the way he just drifted off into the sunset, removing himself and therefore saving them the awkwardness of removing him, when, at the end of the day, much to the general embarrassment of them all, it turned out they had absolutely no cause to do so.

He puts the card back into the drawer. He’s not sure if he wants to give it back to Morse or not.

Will he notice the difference that Thursday sees? How will he feel about that?

And what’s the point, after all?

The past is the past. 

And there's no changing it.  

 

Thursday goes back downstairs, turns on the telly and sets himself down on the couch.

 

It’s a bloody, awful match. But then, he’s in a bloody, awful temper today. And then . . . Oh, that’s unbelievable, that is.

He leaps off the couch.

“Red card, you bastards!” he shouts. "Red card!"

 

“If you’re going to get upset about it, turn it off,” calls Win from the kitchen.

Just then, the doorbell rings. He gets up and heads down the hall, casting one last dirty look at the telly, but Win is already opening the door.

 

“Hello, Mrs. Thursday, Sir,” Morse says.

“We stopped for a pint" Bixby explains.  “We didn’t want to just pop by. We weren’t quite sure if you had the chance to tell Mrs. Thursday we were coming.”

“That’s fine, love,” Win says. “Come in. Now that we are empty nesters, we’ve got a guest room. I’ll show you upstairs.”

“You all right then?” Thursday asks. “The score is tied.”

“We can manage, Fred,” Win says, waving him off.

 

 

Thursday sits back down. Bloody cheats. He hopes they’ll get what for.

Soon, Morse comes lopping in.

Morse says nothing, just collapses on the sofa next to him, and watches the match. At least he’s quiet, doesn’t bother you with a lot of pointless talk.

Odd, that. He seems to be making a study of it. Maybe he’s taken a liking to it, now that that boy he tutors has made his region’s junior league. He might even have been drug off to a few games.

Huh. Well, hopefully, that doesn’t mean he’s going to ask a bunch of fool questions about it.

Morse is watching the screen, eyes narrowed. “Which one is the wide receiver?’ he asks.

“What?” Thursday asks.

Christ. Here we go.

“The wide receiver. Which one is that?”

“How should I know?” Thursday snaps. Damn, this day has got him in a black mood. “I never even heard of such a thing.”

 

“Hmmmm,” Morse says. “Is that so?”

Then, Thursday remembers something. “Oh. You know what. I think I have heard of that. It’s in American football, isn’t it?

Suddenly, Morse is looking delighted. “Oh, is it?” he says.

He seems satisfied with that answer, thank God. Maybe they can watch the match for a few minutes in silence.

 

“So. How was the autopsy?” Morse asks, doubtless thinking he’ll just slip it by.

“It was a ball.”

Morse scowls. “You know what I mean. What did Dr. DeBryn say?”

 “Hat stand, Morse!” Thursday rumbles.

“Fine. Let’s go out on the front stoop. You can tell me there.”

“Just stay out of it. It’s your bag you were after, I thought. And that’s found. Strange and I found it.”

Morse jumps a bit at this. “Where?” he cries.

“Never you mind!” Thursday shouts.

“Who had it? Where is it now?”

“It’s in evidence,” Thursday says.

“Evidence?! But it’s mine. I want it.”

“All the papers are gone,” Thursday says.

“Well, that’s hardly surprising,” Morse sniffs. “That’s what they were after. But I still want my bag.”

“Well, like I said,” Thursday says, “it’s in evidence.”

Morse turns his attention back to the match.  “I’ll just have to go and get it in the morning,” he says.  

Did the man not hear what he said? “What’s this Morse?” Thursday booms. “You can’t take things out of evidence!”

Morse huffs a laugh at this. “Course I can. Been done before, hasn’t it?”

“Not by a proper copper.”

“But I’m not a proper copper,” Morse says, his voice dripping with awful sarcasm. “I’m suspended, pending inquiry.”

“Morse . . .

 

“What’s this I hear?” Win says. “Raised voices? Come on in to dinner. You can set the table if you’ve nothing better.”

Morse stands and slouches off into the kitchen.

“Where’s Bixby, then?” Win asks.

 “He’s still unpacking, most likely,” Morse says. His voice is low and rolling again now that he’s talking to Win. “He packs enough for an arctic expedition.” 

Thursday gets up and follows.

 

Once they start setting the table, Morse’s mood seems to shift. He seems to have given up on harassing him about the autopsy, and he makes no more open mention of his plans to nick his bag back out of evidence. Instead, he asks Win if she’s tried anything out of the cookbooks they bought in Paris.

It’s a bit odd. Morse certainly can be right chatty when he wants. Perhaps it just took the lad this long to feel comfortable with them all. By the time Bixby comes in, he’s positively beaming.

“I just learned something rather interesting. Wide receiver isn’t a position in football at all,” Morse says.

“Well that’s rot,” Bixby says, sitting down at the table. “Of course, it is.”

“It’s only a position in American football,” Morse says.

“Yes, what’s astounding about that?”  Bixby asks.

“You said you played wide receiver.”

“Yes, so . . .  I’m sure I told you I went to Harvard. Football is big in New England.”

“Oh,” Morse says. Then, testingly, “You played on the Harvard football team?” 

“No, not varsity. Intermurals.”

Morse seems to find this plausible. “Oh.”

All done here?

Well, God knows what that was about. At least Win seems amused. She’s been like a hen with no chick these past few months. Sometimes, he’s seen her sit before the telly and he’s been quite sure she has no idea what she’s even watching. It’s as if she’s just staring into empty space, barely able to rise above her own grief.

Maybe Morse and Bixby will take her out of herself a bit.

 

 

Soon, though, about half way through dinner, Thursday finds himself missing the old, more reserved Morse. 

“So how are Joan and Sam, then?” Morse asks.

 

Win’s face falls into the familiar expression of sadness she’s worn these past few months.

 Morse picks up on this right away. “Are they all right?”

“Sam is fine,” Thursday reports, keeping his voice steady, matter-of-fact. “He’s in the army. Joan. I’m sure she’s fine. We just haven’t heard from her lately.”

Morse narrows his eyes. “What do you mean, haven’t heard from her lately?

“Soon after we came back from France, she took a new job. At a bank. And, well, it was robbed,” Thursday says.

“Robbed? Is she all right?” Bixby asks.

“Yes, it just that she, she had taken a fancy to a lad, and told him some things, just in passing, about the way the bank is run. He was an accessory it turns out, and the thugs used the information to their advantage. At one point, they found out she was my daughter. Tried to use that to their advantage, too.”

"So, then, what?" Morse asks. "She just left home and you haven't heard from her since?" 

Neither he nor Win say anything. It's as good as a confirmation. 

“Why would she leave after all that? Without giving you an idea of at least where she is? You don’t know where she is at all?” Morse asks, incredulously.  

Win shakes her head, sadly.

Thursday feels a muscle in his jaw jump; he can almost feel his blood pressure rising. Who is he to question Joan’s motivations? Hadn’t he pulled the exact same stunt just three years ago? Least Joan left a letter signaling her intention, he wants to say. At least she packed a few things to take with her.

 Most people might let it drop, but not Morse.   

“It doesn’t make sense. My step-mother’s hated me since I was twelve, but she has some idea where on the planet I am. Why would she do that?”

“Endeavour,” Bixby says, a coaxing note in his voice.

“Let’s go and find her,” Morse says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Win whisks her head up at that. “That’s just what I said. Her own father’s a detective and he won’t go and look for her.”

“She knows where we are,” Thursday growls. “What am I supposed to do? Drag her back here? If she was going to call, she would have called.”

“But . . . ,” Morse begins.

“Endeavour,” Bixby says again. Morse glances over at Bixby, who just slightly shakes his head.

At least someone can get him to put a lid on it. Trying to get him off a topic is like trying to get a bone from a dog.

Suddenly, it’s clear that everyone is done with their dinner.

Bixby stands. “Why don’t you two run along and sit down for a while, yes? Let us wash up.” He jerks his head at Endeavour, who’s obviously stewing over the whole thing. Thursday can practically hear the wheels churning away.

“Endeavour, stop thinking so loud and help me,” Bixby says. He flicks a cautious look at he and Win. “I don’t really know what I’m doing if you want to know the truth.”

“Oh? What? Oh? I’m sorry.  If I . . . I mean . . . I’m sorry.”

Win reaches out and puts a hand over Morse’s. “It’s all right, love,” she says.

The sadness in Win’s eyes as she speaks is almost too much for Thursday. He has to turn away.

She doesn’t deserve it. She’s been a bit of a mother hen, it’s true, but she always knew when to back up a bit, when to give the kids the space they needed to grow up into.

Especially these past few years—she’s never twatted at Joan and Sam about their hair, their clothes, their music, like some women they knew did with their kids.  

She always knew that one day the kids would leave the nest.

But how could she ever have guessed that one of them would completely leave their lives, too?  

Who is ever prepared for a child, no matter how grown-up, to completely disappear without a trace?

 

*****

In the living room, Win sits next to him on the couch.

 “Do you mind, love?”  he asks, switching on Almanac. “It’s for work.”

“That’s fine, Fred,” she says, a little stiffly.  

  
On the telly, Julian Calendar is interviewing some actress about her new film.

Suddenly, there’s a low, soft song wafting in from the kitchen, amidst the clatter of silverware, as if someone has snapped a radio. But they don’t have a radio in there. What’s this, then?

Thursday turns to look at Win, puzzled. Perhaps she bought one recently. Not a bad idea that, would make the kitchen feel less quiet, now that she hasn’t got the kids in there, trying to steal tidbits while she’s still working.

But, no, Win looks puzzled, too. Then, suddenly, her eyes light up, and she puts her hand over her mouth, giggling in the way she did when she was a girl. She must read the question in his face, because she takes her hand from her mouth and says, “It’s Endeavour.”

Thursday laughs.

Huh. The lad doesn’t sound half bad.

Then, there’s the sound of a spray of water and a cry of surprise. And then Morse’s voice, “Well, what did you _think_ was going to happen?”

Win looks concerned. “Do you think Bixby knows how to do the washing up?”

Thursday shrugs. “Well, I guess he’s about to learn. Hopefully, for Bix’s sake, Morse doesn’t find in it an opportunity to give a lecture on Greek philosophy and the cyclical nature of life.”

 

Win laughs at this. It’s the first time she’s laughed at something he’s said since Joan left. At this moment, she’s forgiven me, Thursday thinks.

At this moment, she’s happy.

 

In a bit, Morse and Bix come trailing into the den. Bixby falls into an arm chair in the corner, and Morse sprawls out on the carpet. Despite his stroppy mood, it’s good to have the lad here, and Bixby, too—good to have a bit of life in the house. It’s been so quiet, just the two of them and the shadow of the disagreement over what to do about Joan between them.   

 

“You make a terrible window, Morse,” Thursday says.

“Sorry,” Morse says, lowering himself further, moving his head out to the way.  

 

On the screen, Mrs. Pettybon is sitting primly on the edge of her chair, as Calendar introduces her.

“ . . . you’re travelling up and down the country, collecting signatures for a petition, is that right?”

“We are,” she says. “We’re calling for a return to decency on the television and the wireless. It’s all getting completely out of hand. I saw one program the other day, and it was the _dirtiest_ program I ever saw. The language. My daughter and I counted twelve bloodies, four bleeders and a bastard.”

 

Thursday huffs a laugh. “Sounds like a regular evening down at the nick.”

“I don’t understand,” Morse says.

“Understand what?” Thursday asks.

“If she thinks those words or so terrible, why is she counting them and repeating them? She doesn’t want them on television, but now she’s just said them. It doesn’t make any sense,” Morse says.

Thursday shrugs. “Just the way prigs are, I suppose.”

 

“One of the people you’ve been complaining about—in fact, you’ve actually called for his record to be banned from the airwaves—is in the studio with us tonight,” Calendar says.

“Is that right?” Mrs. Pettybon asks.

“That is right, yes,” the host says.  

 

“What’s this, then?” Morse asks. “Why are you watching this?”

“Work,” Thursday says. “Seems she’s gotten a death threat in the mail, Mrs. Pettybon.  Fancy’s on detail.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Win muses. “Telling people what they should and shouldn’t. Decency. She just likes the sound of her own voice.”  

 

“It is of course, Nick Wilding of The Wildwood,” Calendar announces.  

There’s a roar of cheers and applause from the audience; Mrs. Pettybon looks fairly undaunted, still sitting ramrod on the edge of her chair.

 

Down on the carpet, Morse groans. “Not these people again. I never heard about them until this week, and now I can’t get away from them.”

 

 

“What is it you don’t like about their music?” Calendar asks Mrs. Pettybon.

“It’s not the music. Of course, it’s too loud, but it’s the words that I object to,” Mrs. Pettybon says, “the words.”

 

 

“Well, she’s not wrong,” Endeavour says.

“What’s this, Endeavour?” Win says. “You can’t be defending this harpy?

 

“Let’s see what all the fuss is about,” Calendar says with a television host’s relentless jollity. “Here’s The Wildwood and their new sound “Jennifer Sometimes.”

 

Morse puts his head on the floor and groans, covering his ears with his hands. “Not this drivel again.”

“It’s not that awful, is it?” Win asks, cajolingly. “It’s just a bit of fun.”

“It is awful,” Morse insists. “Oh God.”

Win casts him a disapproving look. Ha. She’s always been the first to defend Morse when Thursday’s been annoyed with him. So much for the “poor lamb.” Maybe now she’ll see he’s in the right sometimes, that Morse can be a right pretentious pain in the arse.  

For it’s clear that Win likes the song. And soon, Thursday realizes what’s made her so keen. Suddenly, her whole face brightens. “I’ve heard them before,” she says. “Isn’t this the band that Joan likes?”

“I don’t know about that,” Thursday says.  

“Yes, you do. You bought one of their records for her at Woolworth’s.”

Thursday grunts noncommittally. Why does everything and anything seem to remind her of Joan?

“So," Win says, her eyes blazing, “We aren’t even allowed to talk about her, now?”

Thursday turns back to the telly. They can talk about her, sure. But what’s the point of bringing her up every other sentence? What good does it do?

He can feel that, beside him, she’s seething.

 

“They are the ones who took Morse’s bag,” Thursday says, as if that's the reason he doesn't want to join her in her reminiscence about the group. 

“Oh,” Win says, her voice going cold.  He can feel her opinion of The Wildwood plummet in that one syllable. But she hasn’t forgiven him for his reticence when it comes to Joan. 

 “Anyone care for tea?” Win asks, standing. They’ve just finished dinner. It’s hardly likely anyone’s dying for a cuppa right now. But Thursday understands that it isn’t that she suddenly wants tea. She just doesn’t want to sit next to him.

Morse, his hands plastered over his ears, is completely oblivious. Bixby seems to realize that they need a break from one another. He flashes that polished smile.  “Please,” he says.

 

Thursday turns his attention back to the program. Now, Mrs. Pettybon is sitting on a couch with Nick Wilding.

“I saw a program on last night, and it was the _dirtiest_ program I ever saw.”

 

Morse must be listening again, too, because he pipes up. “I thought that other program was the dirtiest program she ever saw. Or is this the same one? Why is she watching all of these things if she despises them so?”

 

“Why was it dirty? Did the people need a wash?” Nick Wilding asks.

“It was shocking,” Mrs. Pettybon answers. “It was about two of these so called-homosexuals.”

 

Oh, Christ, Thursday thinks. Can there be anything more awkward than this?

 

“What seems dirty to you might seem quite acceptable to other people,” Nick Wilding says. “Quite normal in fact.”

 “Well, it’s not acceptable, is it? No one has asked me if I accept it. And it’s not just popular culture, is it, that has lost all standards of decency?  Look at out last recipient of Great Britain’s Poet of the Year award.”

 

All right, then. Evidently, it can get more awkward.

 

Thursday can feel the tension in the air, Morse remains where he is, but he’s gone absolutely still.

“Endeavour Morse?” Wilding asks. “What axe have you to grind with him?”

“His poems. Take “Summer Blue Evening,” for example. It’s all about S-E-X.”

 

Morse gasps. “It is not!” He looks at Bixby. “How does she get that? Did you ever read that into that one?”

“No, not really,” Bixby says vaguely.

Morse’s eyes narrow. “You don’t even know which one that is, do you?”

Bixby smiles broadly. “Of course, I do,” he says, his voice, suddenly polished, is warm and reassuring.  Huh. Usually, he’s smoother than that. He’s with Morse on that one. It’s clear Bixby’s got no idea what the hell Morse is on about.

Thank God, his Win doesn’t write poetry, expect him to remember such things.

 

On the screen, Wilding is laughing. “How do you get that out of that one?” he asks. “I thought that one was about a grove of beech trees.”

 

“It is,” Morse says, to the screen.

 

“It’s absolutely flagrant,” Mrs. Pettybon insists. "Not to mention the allusions to drug-taking. The whole book, in fact, is a prime example of what’s wrong with our country today."

 

Bixby bursts out laughing.

 

But Morse doesn’t seem to be amused. “She must be absolutely debauched to read all that into it. She’s . . .  She must be a complete degenerate!”

Thursday rolls his eyes. He can see the headline now. _Award-winning poet Endeavour Morse calls leader of “Keep Britain Decent” campaign a degenerate._

“What’s all this, then?” Win asks, coming back into the den. Doubtless she’s heard Morse’s outburst.

“Morse is getting lambasted by Mrs. Pettybon. His poems are indecent, it seems,” Thursday says. “Cheer up, Morse, your publisher will doubtless report an upsurge in sales in the morning.”

 

Morse flashes him a look. Then, he gets up from the floor with all the grace and dignity of a Tsar rising from his throne and approaches the telly, looking down at it haughtily, as if Mrs. Pettybon can see him through the screen.

 

“I suppose that shows that the poems that _are_ about sex must be a bit more subtle and sophisticated than _that,_ if she can’t tell the difference,” he says.

 

“Let’s all go have some tea, shall we?” Bixby says, rising from his chair.

 

Just a nice family night around the telly.  

All we needed was for Bixby and Win to have gotten into some fight about politics or religion, Thursday thinks, and everyone would have gotten snappy at one point in the evening.

 

Morse is still contemplating the screen. Mrs. Pettybon is drilling away, Nick Wilding sitting and listening, an ironic smile on his face. Suddenly, Morse’s haughty expression fades.

“I feel quite sorry for her. That’s the worst kind of broken heart,” Morse says. “The kind that leaves you that empty and angry and bitter.” Then he follows Bix into the kitchen. 

Thursday looks at the screen in wonder. Where did he pull that out from?

Inscrutable bugger.

 

******

In the kitchen Bixby asks, “Anyone up for a game of cards?”

“Yes,” everyone choruses immediately.

There’s no bickering in cards, is there? Everyone knows the rules. The rules are the rules and that’s that.

*******

And look at that, he’s winning. Ha.

But wait. Why did Bix throw that card away? He was sure that was a king.

He scrutinizes the man’s face, and finds just the slightest trace of a satisfied smile there.

So, this is how it is then? Humor the old man, eh? Let the curmudgeon win so that he won’t be in such a foul temper, that’s their game, is it?

We’ll see about that.

Just then, Morse leans back and shows his cards to Win. “Does this count for anything, or do they need to be all of the same suit?” he asks.

“For God’s sakes, Morse,” Thursday booms. “You’ve asked that three times if you’ve asked that once. Can’t somebody write the rules down for him?”

Morse blinks in surprise. Win casts him a dark look that’s oddly alarming.  

Bixby silkily reorganizes the cards in his hand. Then he looks out the window.

“I suppose it’s too dark,” he says.

“Too dark for what?” Morse asks.

“I was thinking perhaps I could teach everyone football. Then it could be just like an American Thanksgiving. Everyone sits together and eats—and once they’ve had the chance to chat, they go out in the back garden—or yard as it is in the States—and tackle one another.

Win chuckles merrily at this, but Thursday says nothing.

Three guesses as to whom she’s ready to knock over.

 

 

**********************

 

It’s difficult to fall asleep in a strange room, in a strange bed.

There are different sounds, of course. Even the currents of air as they circulate can be quite different, depending on the placement of a radiator or a window.

But falling asleep is simple for Josephine.

Josephine stepped out of nowhere. With no past and no plans for the future.

It had been a long day; all that endless walking. But he had done it. Now Bixby wouldn’t look at him like that anymore.

The trouble with walking was, it gave you too much time to think. Too much time for the thoughts to start moving in circles, to start bumping into one another and morphing into something else. The thing to do was to go home, sit at your typewriter, and get it all out of your head, set it into neat rows.

Endeavour had almost made it home, when Bixby drove up in that yellow convertible, all pumped up about God-knows-what deal he’d just pulled off in Paris. He pulled his sunglasses down to the edge of his nose and asked, “What’s your name, baby?”

Endeavour’s head was so full it was aching. He didn’t want to grapple with that one, on top of everything else.

But then Josephine popped into his head and stepped out of the shadows of the trees and said, “Josephine.”

Josephine shut Bixby right up.

Josephine can fall right asleep, even if she’s in a strange place. She’s not afraid of anything and she doesn’t have a lot to think about because she doesn’t exist.

She never heard the cries of finches, the cries of rabbits, or the cries of someone in the night who—years and years later—you later realize could not possibly have been Dionysus.

She’s never stood standing in one place only to have the world go black and wake up on the ground in another.

Josephine just closes her eyes and falls right to sleep.

***************

Bixby stares at the ceiling. Well.

How did he end up here?

He feels guilty for thinking it. He never would have made it through last spring without the Thursdays; he owes them a debt of gratitude he’ll never be able to repay.

And it’s quite a nice room, actually.

It’s just that it’s so perfectly ordinary. And when Bixby had first stepped onto that ship, it was the first rule he had made for himself—he would never settle for the ordinary. He’d put such a distance between himself and the workaday world that nothing would ever be able to touch him or his. 

Oh well. At least there is something of elegance in the room. He rolls over and looks to where Endeavour is stretched out beside him, all long lines and classically austere grace. He looks just like a Greek statue, but warm and alive, ready at the slightest touch to open those startling summer blue eyes and to part that wide, soft mouth for a kiss.

Bixby moves closer, reaching over Endeavour’s sleeping form to run one broad hand along his taught abdomen, all warm, soft skin with a course line of hair leading down from his navel. Endeavour stretches, murmurs approvingly.

Too bad he has to be in that damn cartoon dog t-shirt and those ancient, faded pajama bottoms. But there is one advantage to the things; the elastic is fairly well-worn, an open invitation for Bixby’s hand to wander down under them and to . . .

Endeavour flips over, suddenly wide awake, eyes crackling in the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

Bixby pulls back, startled. “What do you think I’m doing?" Bixby asks.

“You can’t do that while you’re staying at someone’s house.”

Bixby laughs softly. Is he quite in earnest? At his house in Oxfordshire, he had hallways full of bedrooms set aside for the possibility that people might do just this.

There are plenty of ways to leave no evidence behind, if that’s what he’s worried about. He would never be so rude as to do otherwise.

“Why ever not?” Bixby asks.

“You just can’t,” he says, as if this is some sort of given, just something everyone knows.

Endeavour gives him a disapproving look and turns away. He holds himself stiffly, aligning himself along the edge of the bed, sending off waves of untouchability.  Bixby quite resents this. Since when has he not played by Endeavour’s rules?

Awfully hypocritical he is, too, about it, considering from day one, Endeavour’s signature move has been to grab him by the lapels and fall backwards, dragging him with him onto whatever horizontal surface happens to be most handy.

Bixby’s quite tempted to take the extra pillows and wedge them between them.

There? Happy now? Your virtue is assured.

What rot.

Bixby rolls back over and looks at the ceiling. He thought by now he had figured out all of Endeavour’s quirky directives on that score.

It took a while to decipher them, too.

The most inexplicable one he had uncovered out of the blue, once when they were driving home from the Belboroughs’, back when they still lived in Oxfordshire. He hadn’t yet known Pagan that long, so he was surprised when he slipped down out of the passenger seat and began working on Bixby’s belt.

Bixby struggled to keep the car in its lane. Was he planning what he thought he was . . .

Oh, God.

Before he knew what was happening, Pagan had freed his cock and taken it into his mouth. The sudden plunge into that firm, wet, warmth nearly made Bixby steer into a tree. He looked down and moaned. All those hundreds of spiraling curls were bobbing about in time to the rhythm that Pagan had set, sliding his mouth up and down on him, in a pace that sent Bixby hurtling toward the edge faster than he would have thought possible.

It was irresistible. Bixby put one hand out, to card through the red-gold curls.

 

Pagan froze. “Don’t,” came a low growl.

Bixby pulled his hand away, horrified. Dear God, had he been so carried away as to hold his head down?  He had thought that he had touched his hair almost too gently to be noticed.

Pagan resumed his pace. Bixby looked down again. It was too much. His hair was flying now, each spiral on its own flight, multiplying the effect of the sight of Pagan bobbing up and down on him, emphasizing his every move. Bixby reached out and let one tendril wrap around his finger.

Pagan’s face snapped up.

It was disconcerting as hell: the incongruous mismatch of that lush mouth, slick with saliva, and those angry, electric blue eyes.

“I said 'don’t,'” Pagan said.

 

Well, hell.

Bixby had run his hands through that hair countless of other times. Why now was it forbidden?

It was odd, but what else was there for it? Bixby kept both his hands on the wheel and stayed absolutely still. Which was for the best actually, if they wanted not to die in a fiery crash. Which Bixby didn’t.

Although from what he’d been learning of Pagan, he might have considered that a fine way to go out.

 Pagan watched him warily for what seemed an excruciating long time before slowly taking him back into his mouth and resetting his pace.

 Bixby figured it out soon enough. It almost came to feel like a delightful torment, watching that those spirals pulsing up and down in time to the pulsing in his cock, not being able to touch them, only able to watch as they flew, faster and faster and then . . .

Well, Bixby thinks, thumping a pillow into shape. No point in thinking about that now. Endeavour's made that plain enough.

Better to think of something else.

Hmmmmmm…

He quite hates The Wildwood.

He wonders what label they are under. Bixby knows the likes of these record companies all too well. Houses of sand, all of them.

Four phone calls, and Bixby could have them declaring bankruptcy in the morning.

Three phone calls.

Maybe even two.

Ruddy ponces.

 

*******

Win sets the kettle on the burner and waits.

When Joan was a baby, she had been up nights just like this. Joan was her first, and Win had found herself fretting over every little thing.

“It doesn’t get better,” her mother and her aunts and her friends all told her. Once you’re a mother, there’s a little piece of your heart out there in the world. And there’s no changing that.

They had always been a close family. She and Fred had tried to be as supportive as they could. She understood Fred could be a bit over-protective, it was true. But aren’t many fathers that way?

Had they done anything so terrible to deserve this long silence?

Just one phone call. To let her know she was alive. That she was all right. That . . . that she still loved her. Or that, at least, she didn't hate her. 

Then Win could get some sleep.

It hurt like nothing else to understand that after years and years of love, of teething, and finger-painting that gave way to making dresses for first dances, of stuffed toys under the Christmas tree that gave way to pop albums, that suddenly, she should be so drastically cut from the life that for years had been entwined so sweetly with her own.

Once Joan was a teenager, Win tried especially hard to give her a space to grow into. She remembered all too well what it was like. Joan might even be surprised to know that her parents hadn’t entirely approved of Fred when they met him. It was a rough road, growing up, breaking away.

The kettle whistles, and, as she lifts it from the gas, she sees a shadow in the doorway.

“Endeavour, love?”

Endeavour looks out from behind the doorframe.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just heard footsteps.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you, dear.”

“That’s all right. I was awake anyway. I have a lot I want to do today.”  

“Would you like a cuppa, then?”

“Please,” he says, coming into the kitchen. “Thank you.”

He takes a place at the table as she fills another cup.

“Aren’t you going out with Fred today?” she asks, setting the cups down.

“No,” Endeavour says, with a sigh. “There are some other things I want to do. And he doesn’t really take me seriously anymore, anyway.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Win says.

Endeavour shrugs. “It is. But that’s all right. I understand.”

“I wouldn’t take anything he says too much to heart. He’s been more upset about Joan, I think, then he likes to let on,” Win says.  

Endeavour hums in agreement.

They sit, cradling the warm cups in their hands, taking a few tentative sips as the steam wafts into the air. Outside, it’s just coming dawn. The sky is turning from jet to an inky dark blue.

“I am sorry for what I said last night,” Endeavour says. “I didn’t mean to seem as if I was comparing you to my stepmother. I meant it just the opposite.”

“I know you didn’t mean any harm, love. Don’t you worry about it. We’ll get it sorted out.”

“Would you . . . ,” he begins uncertainly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to try to find her?”

Win has to think about this. “I don’t like it much,” she says, “but in my heart, I suppose Fred is right. If we try to find her when she’s asked us not to, we might just risk pushing her away more. She thinks we’ve been overbearing, I suppose, overstepping our mark. If we go out and look for her, perhaps then we’re just proving her point.”

“I don’t think just wondering where someone is counts as being overbearing, though,” Endeavour says.

He’s watching her cautiously. She pats his hand.

“We just have to trust her,” Win says.

“All right,” Endeavour says. He takes another sip of tea. “You should know, she’s bound to be all right,” Endeavour says. “She knows you love her. It makes a difference, having that sort of love. It will always protect you in the end.”

Win tries to give him a smile.

She would love to believe that that could be true.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has to be the future inspiration for a Valentine's Day one-shot... Endeavour and Bixby take a trip to Denmark in 1989 :0)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At this rate, he’ll never have time to go to Dr. DeBryn’s, to go to Maplewick Hall, to go the lake house to find Pagan, to go to . . . to . . .
> 
> . . . to go find Morse.

 

 

“Do you have any money?” Endeavour asks.

Bixby, his head resting deep into his pillow, opens one bleary eye and smiles. “A fair bit, some might say,” he says.  

“No. I mean do you have any money that I can have. Some pounds. For cabs and things. All I have are three francs.”

“So, this is how it’s going to be, is it? At night, it’s ‘go beat it,’ and in the morning, it’s ‘do you have any money?’”

Endeavour sighs wearily. “Never mind.  I’m sorry I asked. I’m leaving now.  I’ll see you later.”

 “Hang on,” Bixby says, looking up. “I was only joking.”

Endeavour stops outside the door and leans against the wall, watching him with bored contempt. “Ha ha,” he says. “I can hardly breathe for laughing.”

 “Where are you going?” Bixby asks. “Awfully early isn’t it?”

Endeavour shrugs.

“You know, if you opened your own account, you wouldn’t have to ask me,” Bixby says.

Oh, not this lecture again, Endeavour thinks. Not right now.

Endeavour considers him for a moment longer; then, without a word, he turns and stalks off.

“Would you just wait? Endeavour?!”

Endeavour turns back. It’s only because the Thursdays are down the hall that he returns at all: he doesn’t want to make a scene, to wake them up.

“My wallet’s on the dresser. Take the twenty.”

 “I just need a ten,” he says.  

“Take the twenty. Make sure you get some lunch. And lunch means food, not just beer.”

Endeavour turns and looks at him archly. “Does it? I had no idea.”

 “Where are you going?” Bixby asks again. “I thought you’d be going off with Thursday.”

“No,” Endeavour says, taking a ten-pound note from Bixby’s wallet. “I have some things of my own to do today.”

“I said to take the twenty,” Bixby says.

“I just need a ten,” Endeavour says. “And, actually, might I borrow one of your jackets?”

“Why didn’t you pack one of your own? Mine don’t look right on you.”

“I didn't think to. I need it for only one appointment this morning,” Endeavour says.

“Oh, all right,” Bixby says.  

Endeavour opens the doors of the wardrobe and takes out a dark jacket.

“Oh, God,” Bixby says, “Not the Zegna.”

Endeavour cuts him a look. “I need it for only ten minutes. I won’t let anything happen to your precious Zegna. If I do, you can take my next check and buy a new one. I earn some money, too, you know.”

“Fine,” Bixby says, with a wave of his hand. Then he crashes back against the pillows.

Well, he’s certainly woken up on the wrong side of the bed today, Endeavour thinks. He’s in rare form.

He wishes Bix could have just said, “Good luck, Endeavour” or, even, “See you, Josephine,” or literally anything else under the sun, considering what he’s off to do today—and considering it’s Bixby who seems to want him to do it.

If all goes according to plan, that’s well and good. But if this does prove to be some terrible mistake, Endeavour hates for this to have been their last exchange.

_“Oh, God. Not the Zegna.”_

He can’t bear when Bixby treats him like that, like he’s some sort of walking disaster.

Well. No more.

Endeavour walks down the stairs and then steps out onto the front stoop. The world is summer at half-seven quiet, the sun just beginning to show its promise. He slides Bixby’s sunglasses down over his face.

And Voilà.

He’s Bixby.

Things work out for Bix somehow. He’s just one of those people whom the world seems to stoop for. Luck is always on his side.

“On a day like this, anything is possible,” Endeavour says to the empty morning street.

 

**********

When Pagan was released from prison, his initial plan was to remain thoroughly intoxicated at all times: being drunk made a lot of sense.

I don’t understand why I can’t remember what I did 15 minutes ago. I don’t understand why I would say what I just did out loud.

I can see that some of the things I think don’t make sense, but I can’t help it. I think them anyway.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

Why is that?

Well. I’m smashed, that’s why.

 

But why should he still feel drunk when he was sober? It was scary, feeling so out of control. Better by far just to remain drunk. The Pagan wouldn’t have to think about that.

That was a question Pagan would leave for Endeavour.

 

 

Endeavour isn’t sure, sometimes, what Bixby had expected him to be. Perhaps the problem lay in Bixby’s romantic temperament: he had persisted in in seeing Pagan as some madcap bohemian, someone who just needed a little sobering up, a little dusting off.

But the trouble was, the dust was not just on the surface—Endeavour was damaged goods through and through.

Sometimes, Endeavour felt as if he were just another one of Bixby’s projects. He was just that way with his companies: Buy up one in financial distress, reorganize it, resell at a profit.

Too bad for Bixby there was no simple way to reorganize Endeavour.

It wasn’t as if Endeavour didn’t try. He did have a job. He had never missed a deadline. Whenever Turner set him a new date, he would write it in big letters on the inside of his notebooks so that he wouldn’t forget.

 He always remembered which days Guillaume and Esme were coming. He had even helped Esme with some of her paperwork for the Sorbonne. He wasn’t completely useless.

By some standards, he might even be seen as a success. He had won all sorts awards and honorary degrees—all the external accolades that Bixby set such store by. So, there must be some people out there who didn’t view him as a catastrophe waiting to happen.

 

He wishes Bixby didn’t seem so disappointed in him. Months and months would pass, and Endeavour would finally begin to believe that everything was all right. That what he said was true:

_That’s fine then._

And then, out of the blue, a flash of that look, as if something was alarmingly wrong with him. As if he regretted every having gotten into this.

 Whatever this was.

*******

 

Maybe it would be better if he just said it.

_Don’t you think I know? Don’t you think I wish it were otherwise? Don’t you think I’d do something about it if I could?_

 

But that would mean admitting it was true.

And it wasn’t.

He could still fix everything.

And he’d start today.

First, he would find Miss Thursday, and Mrs. Thursday wouldn’t look like that anymore, as if her heart were breaking.

Then, he would determine who killed Barry Finch. It what never make amends for what he and his friends had done all of those years ago, but at least he wouldn't have done now what he did then. At least he wouldn't have blinked and looked away.

And once he solved the case, Thursday would have to concede that he was still a good detective. He wouldn’t rumble at him about any ridiculous hat stands. Wouldn’t tell him “You stay out of this!”

He didn’t need that. He’d seen it all, for God’s sakes. How could Thursday of all people have forgotten that?

And then Thursday wouldn't look like that anymore, as if he was blaming himself for. . . for whatever it was that was . . . 

That would all the be the easy part.

Then. There was nothing else for it. He’d have to go and find them.

Hope they weren’t too angry.

Hope they might come back with him, might help him to put all the pieces back together.

Maybe then, Bixby might not regret taking him from the lake house.

Maybe then, Bixby might be happy.

 

*********

Constable Tyler is half-nodding in his chair, just finishing off the night shift, when he hears the sound of rapping knuckles on his desk.

He opens his eyes and jumps with a start. A man is standing before him, wearing an expensive-looking suit jacket and Italian movie star sunglasses, his mouth set in a frown.  

“Inspector Morse, International Division,” he says. “I understand zhat you have a satchel here locked up in evidence. I need to take it over to forensics.”

“What?” Tyler says.

The man sighs and flashes a card. Tyler squints to read it, but it’s all in French.

“It was brought in yesterday. By Inspector Zhursday and Sergeant Strange. I need it. Now. It’s been involved in a crime crossing international borders.”

What’s this? Constable Tyler has never heard of such a thing. Is there an International Division?

The man raps his knuckles again. “Look, sharp, man. Inspector Zhursday ees downstairs, waiting for the zing. Do you want him to have to come all ze way up here, what with the mood he has been in of late?

Inspector Thursday has been an absolute terror these past few months. The last thing Constable Tyler wants to do is incur the man’s wrath.

“Just a sec, sir, no need to get testy,” Tyler says, jumping up from is chair. He goes to the back room and finds it there on the shelf—a leather book satchel.

“This it?” Tyler asks.

“Zat es ze one,” the man says. “Merci beaucoup.”  

 

The man takes the bag, turns and leaves. Once he’s halfway to the door, damned if he doesn’t raise it to his face, like he’s smelling the thing.

The French are a funny lot, make no mistake.

**********

 

Endeavour takes off Bixby’s jacket and carefully rolls it up, popping it into his bag.

Oh. Wait.

Hang it all.

That pastry.

It’s still in here?

Those bastards. He was still eating that.

Oh, God, now there is some sort of moldy slime and sticky jam on the damn jacket. Endeavour tries to brush it off, but it just seems to rub in worse. He feels almost as if he might be ill. Oh, God.

It wasn’t fair. If Bixby hadn’t made him so anxious about borrowing the thing, he wouldn’t have been so quick to stow it away in his bag. He would have taken his time, checked first and found the pastry. And this wouldn't have happened. 

Well. He’ll have to work on it later.

Endeavour wonders if any part of the pastry might still be OK. He’s just realized that ten pounds is not going to be enough for all that he has to do.

He takes a tentative bite.

No.

Oh, Christ.

 It’s disgusting.

He spits it out into his hand.

 The pastry is a lost cause, but the jacket is definitely salvageable.

Look how easy it is. He’s already sorting it all out.

He drops the pastry half and half-chewed bit in a bin along the sidewalk, rolls the jacket back in his bag, slings the satchel strap over his shoulder, and sets off into the street.

*********

Whenever Bixby goes anywhere, he always brings a gift.

It seems a particularly good idea, especially if you are planning to drop by uninvited. And especially if you think the person you are visiting might not be at home—and that you might have to find the spare key to his house so you can wait for him for as long as necessary.  

This is easy. This is catching two fish with one net.

What would a pathologist like as a gift?

It’s hard to say.

Where might a stylish twenty-something woman be likely to look for a job?

Probably at the same place where one might find a good gift for a pathologist.

******

When Pagan was released from prison, he would have liked to have moved to Timbuktu, someplace where no one who knew him would ever see him again. But, let’s face it, he said, I don’t have the money for that.

And so he stayed right in Oxford.

So. Miss Thursday always seemed to be wearing a different outfit. She certainly did seem to like to shop. She probably would have liked to have moved to London, but, let’s face it, she’d say, I don’t have the money for that.

 

 _Ergo:_ there’s a good chance Miss Thursday might be here in Oxford.

 

****

By ten-thirty, Endeavour is exhausted. It’s already sweltering; his shirt is beginning to stick to his back. He’s been walking for two hours already, and he’s accomplished nothing but dodge double-takes. He’s looked in wine shops and book shops and clothing boutiques and he’s hasn’t seen Miss Thursday anywhere.

At this rate, he’ll never have time to go to Dr. DeBryn’s, to go to Maplewick Hall, to go the lake house to find Pagan, to go to . . . to . . .

. . . to go find Morse.

He stops and sits for a while on a bench, wondering what he should do next.

 “Morse?”

Endeavour looks up. And it’s incredible. It must be because he’s being Bixby.

It’s Miss Thursday.

“Morse?” she asks again, more uncertainly.

Oh, the sunglasses. He takes them off. “Hello, Miss Thursday.”

She smiles broadly and sits beside him on the bench.

“I didn’t know you were in Oxford. Almost didn’t recognize it was you, what with the look-alikes you see around.”

“Look-alikes?” Endeavour asks.

“You haven’t seen any?”

Endeavour can’t imagine what she’s talking about. “No,” he says.

Miss Thursday scrutinizes him for a moment, tilting her head and twisting her mouth in a funny, deft little motion. “You all right? You look a bit low.”  

“Oh,” Endeavour says. “It’s nothing. It’s just: I have only ten pounds and I’m supposed to buy a gift for someone.”

She laughs. “Oh, is that all.”

Endeavour laughs, too.

 

Miss Thursday, it transpires, is working in a clothing boutique. A bit tricky to buy something for someone you don’t know that well there, but it can be done.

“Where are you staying?” she asks.  

Well, here it is.

“With your parents,” Endeavour says.  

Her expression turns stony. “So. You know,” she says. It’s a statement rather than a question.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She looks at him sharply. “Did they send you to look for me?”

“No. I offered, but they said no,” Endeavour says, lifting a hat from the shelf. “I think they are afraid of you.” He puts the hat on and looks at himself in the mirror.   “This hat might be nice. It’s a bit vintage. Something a doctor in Yorkshire in the 1930s might wear.”

“Afraid of me?” Miss Thursday asks incredulously.

 “Yes,” Endeavour says.  “Afraid of looking for you. Afraid they’ll accidentally push you further away. Are you angry at them?”

She blinks at him in surprise. “Of course not. Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. It seems awfully hard, isn’t? They aren’t bad parents, are they? Wouldn’t you worry, if one of them completely disappeared? Couldn’t you drop them a line? Get in touch?”  

“And say what?” Miss Thursday asks, making it clear she’s losing interest in the conversation.

“Just to let them know you’re all right. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Oh,” she says loftily. “ _The right thing._ I’ve always done the right thing. For all the good it’s done me.” She sighs. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I’m not going back.”

“No?”

“No,” she says. She’s looking angrier than Endeavour would have thought.

“Why?” he asks. Then he pulls a scarf down from the shelf. “What do you think of this?” he adds, as if he isn’t that much interested in her response to his first question. Bixby always does airy little things like that.

“I don’t want everything I do to bounce back on them, that’s why. Did they tell you about the robbery?”

“Yes.”

“Did they tell you it was all my fault? Did they tell you about the things I told that bloke? If I hadn’t got mixed up with that . . . the _daughter of a police inspector_ ," she adds with derision.

Endeavour puts the scarf down. It’s an awfully scratchy one. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for that. What could you have done? Couldn’t you . . . couldn’t you please just call them? What if something were to happen, and you never got the chance again? You mean the world to them.”

Miss Thursday looks up sharply. “Who are you to talk? No one knew where you got off to when you got out of prison, did they?”

Endeavor stills at this. There was no world in which he imagined that a conversation with Miss Thursday of all people might verge in this direction. “No,” Endeavour concedes. “But it’s not the same. I don’t have any parents.”

“What about mum and dad?” Miss Thursday says. “You don’t think they wondered? Dad was home by then. We couldn’t even get him to sit in the garden, get a bit of fresh air, he was that worried about leaving the phone.”

“Why?”  

“Why?” she says. “Because of you, you great prat. Dad knew they were working to get you out. He thought he would be the one you would call to pick you up, when they released you.”

“Oh. I didn’t know,” Endeavour says. And his voice sounds odd to himself, as if it’s coming from far away. “I didn’t think I could call him.”

“Why in heaven’s name not?”

“I thought he was dead. That’s what the guards told me, at least.”

Miss Thursday stops short and frowns. “Why would they have told you such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” Endeavour says. And it’s essentially true, although he can think of several possibilities: to be cruel, to play with his head, to shut him up from asking about Thursday every thirty minutes.

Miss Thursday seems unwilling to let this subject drop. “You must have learned he was alive after a bit. Why did you stay away for months and months?”

“I didn’t want anyone to see me,” Endeavour says, and it’s an odd thing to say, really, while one is looking in a mirror and trying on hats. He looks at himself and thinks it again: _I didn’t want anyone to see me._

 “Why?”  she prompts.

“Because it was my fault. That your father was shot.”

Miss Thursday looks at him steadily. “Well. There you are, then. We’re two peas in a pod, I would say.”

“I wouldn’t,” Endeavour says. “I recited a poem. A madman was running to kill us, and I recited Houseman. Bet you didn’t do anything so foolish at the robbery, did you?”

He feels almost as if he wants to cry, but he laughs instead. This is walking too near the edge. Because it’s not the only reason he didn’t particularly want to be seen, is it?  The wreckage that stumbled into the car with Kay and Tony could in no way compared to an innocent young bank teller caught up in a robbery, could it?

She raises her eyebrows. “No,” she admits. “I didn’t quite do that.”

This is not working out the way Endeavour had envisioned it at all.

And then he realizes: That morning, as he stood on the Thursday’s stoop, he had been all wrong when he had imagined this day would be some sort of victory march.

On the contrary, the path he’s laid out for himself resembles nothing so much as a decent into Dante’s Inferno, each ring drawing him closer and closer into the center of hell. For a moment, he closes his eyes. He feels the blood pumping in his head.

At the end of the pilgrimage, Dante emerges all the wiser, worthier of Beatrice.

Beatrice? Bixby?

And Bixby who makes light of everything and who makes light.

_You shine a light that kindles_

_all three in a blaze and ricochets_

_the radiance back to you._

 

 “What’s so funny?” Miss Thursday asks, suspiciously.

“Nothing.”

Endeavour picks up another hat off of the shelf. Suddenly, he understands something else, too: he’s the wrong person to have this conversation with Joan.

His path had been irrevocably different from hers: he had never had to struggle for a sense of independence from his parents; he never had to work on reconfiguring his relationship with his father and Gwen once he reached adulthood, because, well, he never had a relationship with them in the first place.

His father was less than happy when he had learned about his scholarship to Oxford, it was true, but only because he feared his upkeep there might cost him more than his upkeep at home. Once Pagan make it clear that he would prefer to spend the Christmas hols nearly freezing to death in an abandoned warehouse rather than ask anything of him, that was the end of that.

One of the last conversations he ever had with his father made that, finally, clear.

  _You still with the police?_

_Yes._

_I never liked the police._

But what Endeavour was sure that he meant to say was: I never liked you.

 

Endeavour stands for a minute, lost in thought, and perhaps Miss Thursday takes his silence as a stricture, because she switches tactics, adding somewhat defensively, “Besides, you don’t know what Dad is like.”

Endeavour huffs a bitter laugh at this. “Yes, I do,” he says. And here, he’s on firmer ground. In fact, it’s quite probable that he has a more accurate picture of Fred Thursday then even she, his own daughter, has. “You want to be taken seriously. To be your own person. And he’s used to being the one looking out for you. It’s hard for him, I’m sure, letting go.”

 

But perhaps that’s not the whole story, either, Endeavour thinks. For again, just as his and Miss Thursday’s paths have differed, Fred Thursday’s had taken yet another route.

 At the same age that Endeavour and his friends at Oxford were going to parties and drinking and writing essays in Greek and playing musical beds—and at the same age that Miss Thursday and her friends were going to dances and pub crawling and trying on minidresses and listening to pop records—Thursday had been away at war, God knows where, and probably more frightened then he dared to admit even to himself.

He had never the chance to enjoy—or to suffer, depending on how you looked at it—the sort of prolonged adolescence that he and Joan had had. Who knew? In his eyes, perhaps they _were_  mere children. And perhaps, in some ways, he wasn’t wrong.

“Perhaps it’s difficult for men of his generation to understand. They sort of skipped that phase of life, didn’t they?" Endeavour asks. "Going straight to war? It might have left them with not that much patience for others, who are trying to find their way. They had to either find it or get shot, I suppose.  That’s the only thing they know. Maybe just worrying over people, wanting to keep them safe, is their way of saying that they love you."

She considers this for a moment, but then looks unconvinced. “Or maybe they’re just tyrannical, overbearing arses.”

“Yes,” Endeavour says. “And that, too, I suppose.” He tries on another scarf and considers it.  “Well, one way or the other, I’d certainly say you have his attention.”

Endeavour doesn’t want to talk about it much anymore. If she can’t see she’s lucky she has a place to fall, he can’t help her. It makes him almost sick to think about it.

Unconditional love. Infinite love. A love that forgives everything. A love that, when you say or do something odd, just looks away? Who wouldn’t want that?

 “Do you think this hat and scarf set are good?” Endeavour asks. “He does go fishing. I think he might look quite good in it.” He tilts his head and looks in the mirror again. "Then again, I don’t know much about such things. Look what I’ve been wearing,” he says, holding up the sunglasses.

“They are a bit big for your face, but you can pull them off,” Miss Thursday says.  
 

“I sort of like this,” Endeavour says. “I think he’d sooner have some Scotch. But he’s a doctor. He can afford better Scotch than what I can get for ten pounds.”

 

 

**********

Dr. DeBryn was never one to believe in such claptrap, but sometimes, he was convinced that he and Endeavour Morse had some sort of unfinished business.

Just when the chap would begin to fade to the back of his mind, there he would be—in a newspaper article or in display in a bookshop. Once, he had seen a man standing in the street, and had thought for certain that it was Morse, only to realize that it was an undergrad, a disciple of sorts, emulating his style, such as it was.

 

It had been a particularly trying day last spring when he had stopped by the Thames Valley office to drop off some paperwork, where he ran into Inspector Thursday, who stood leaning against his desk, showing a set of photographs to a slightly uncomfortable-looking Sergeant Strange.

Inspector Thursday waved him over; he seemed in an uncharacteristically jovial mood. 

“Come and have a look at the snaps I’ve just got back of me and the missus’ holiday in France,” he called.

DeBryn nodded and prepared himself to smile politely at all the standard shots of a middle-aged English couple in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

Instead, in the first photo, the Inspector and his wife were seated at a table in a small café—along with, and here his stomach did a small flip—the man who had introduced himself to him at the scene of Henry Winter’s suicide as Joss Bixby, and a gently smiling Morse.

Thursday thumbed through photo after photo, each containing different combinations of the Thursdays, Bixby and Morse around Paris. In every photo, Bixby wore the same easy, self-assured smile; in some, Morse was smiling, in others, he looking slightly perplexed, as if were unaware of the camera’s presence.

DeBryn was surprised: he had always known Thursday was a decent man, but it seemed incredible that a man of his generation would take his wife to spend a holiday in France with two men who seemed for all the world to be a fairly well-established couple.

 

But then of course, this was Morse. DeBryn thought it quite possible that, even if Morse were to reveal himself to be a Soviet spy, Thursday would simply laugh and say, “Lad’s just going through a phase. Reading too much goddamned Pushkin or somewhat.”

 

It wasn’t as if Bixby and Morse weren’t discreet: in none of the photos were they touching or even leaning in toward one another—but still, there was something unmistakably there, some connection that was difficult to miss.

In one photo, Thursday and his wife were standing in front of a large country house.

“That’s Morse and Bixby’s place in Saint-Brieuc, it’s about twenty kilometers south of Nancy. Pretty little town,” Thursday says.

Dr. DeBryn makes a quick calculation. Nancy. About two hours to Paris. Three, say, to Stuttgart. About three to Zurich. It would be the perfect place for a man such as Bixby, who does business internationally, to have visitors in from the city, for weekends of abandon.

Or, the perfect place to tuck away his male lover, to keep him somewhat out of sight.

Does Morse mind, then, being hidden away, rather like a king’s mistress?  Or is he happy enough, after his rather turbulent career with the police, with a quiet life in the country?  

It most likely suits Bixby well enough; he, no doubt, works the secrecy surrounding his private life to his advantage. He’s a businessman—he knows all too well that items in short supply are in greater demand.

At that house in Oxfordshire, it seemed he had invited all and sundry to his party, no matter how many degrees of separation lay between himself and his guests.

Dinner invitations to the house in Lorraine would be far more difficult to come by, and therefore all the more coveted. One associate or client might mention an interest in poetry, have a wife on an arts council, and they receive an invitation—and look who happens to be at the house, but the English poet Endeavour Morse?

Another business partner might, in an attempt to ingratiate himself to Bixby, cast aspersions on another. “That Stephenson is a such a poof,” he would say. Bixby would say nothing, but take note. And the man might hear of others attending parties and dinners at Bixby’s and wonder in vain why no such invitation for himself ever came.

Thursday files through some photos of he and his wife in Provence and then comes to the photo at the end of the pile: it’s a bit out of place. It’s Morse and Bixby on a couch in a light-filled drawing room. Bixby sits with a confident, expansive sprawl, one arm draped along the back of the couch, all perfect white smile and tanned face and impeccably groomed smooth, dark hair. Morse, by contrast, looks a bit of a mess—he’s in a football jersey that reads _Nancy-Sud_ and torn jeans, ripped to show one bony knee. His hair is standing around him as though he just stuck his finger in an electrical socket, and, indeed, his whole expression looks thus—as if he were slightly stunned.

It seems a bit worrisome, the difference in the last photo and the ones taken in Paris, where he looks more like an errant poet on holiday, dressed in crisp white shirts and blue ties. And he certainly looks much different in the photo than the elegant creature in the evening suit DeBryn had seen at the scene of Henry Winter’s suicide.

“I never figured Morse for a football fan,” DeBryn says, dryly, wondering what Thursday’s take on the photo might be.

Thursday snorts. “Some kid he tutors, their cook’s grandson, made their region’s junior team. He was all abuzz about it, brought Morse the shirt.”  

DeBryn filed this away quietly. So even this bit of life, then, was not denied to them. He tutored a boy who thought enough of Morse to bring him the shirt and Morse thought enough of him to wear it. The boy might even have siblings. Morse and Bixby might be to them as a set of eccentric uncles.

The photos certainly relayed a degree of domesticity of which men like him could scarcely dare to hope. A poet and a multimillionaire living in France, it seemed, might push the envelope further than a doctor and a chemist living in Britain.

Perhaps he and Edward might move there.

*******

Max had met Edward by the bar after a concert. They had fallen into a conversation about the performance, had a drink, and said good-night.

And then, the next week, there he was again. He sat down next to Max as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Again, they talked after the concert. And this time, Edward invited him back to his place, a charming brickstone on one of Oxford’s tonier streets.

After years of subterfuge and dark public conveniences, it turned out to be just that easy.

*******

On his first evening at Max’s house, Edward spotted a copy of Morse’s book on an end table. “What do you make of him? His things are a bit surreal, aren’t they? The academics all seem to laud him to the skies, but I can’t make heads or tails of any of it.”

It was one of the few times in his life that Max wasn’t quite sure what to say. He never _was_ sure what to make of Morse, himself, and he had worked alongside the man for two years.

He felt like a fool, at times, when he remembered how his eyes had once surreptitiously traced Morse around the room; his feelings for him, in retrospect, resembled nothing so much as a schoolboy crush—the kind a fourteen-year-old might conceive. In fact, the last time he had been at a bookshop, he had seen two teenaged girls mooning over Morse’s photo on the back cover of his book, and realized with a jolt of embarrassment how much he, a 37-year-old trained professional, had in common with them. 

After Edward left, Max shoved the book onto his shelf. He had never really known the man after all. And now that he had Edward, there was no need in his life for idle daydreams.

 

 

*********

In the kitchen, Edward is sipping a glass of wine while Max gets out a loaf of bread and begins to slice it.

“I’ll just go and put on a record, shall I?” Edward says. “Anything in particular you are in the mood for?”

Max waves the hand holding the bread knife airily. “Anything you like,” he says.

Edward heads out of the kitchen and down the hall, glass in hand. But, in a moment, he’s back, standing in the doorway, looking distinctly perplexed.

 “What is it?” Max asks.

Edward shakes his head in disbelief. Then he laughs. “I don’t know. I don’t know whether I should be jealous or if we should call the police.”

“How’s that?” Max asks.

“There’s a ridiculously beautiful man asleep in a chair in your living room. I don’t know how he must have gotten into the house. He’s either an old flame with a spare key or a remarkably lazy burglar.”

“What’s this?” Max asks, putting down the bread knife. Edward turns to lead him down the hall.

In the living room, Max stops short. What on earth?

It’s Morse, dressed in the way Max has seen him in photos, in a crisp white Oxford shirt and loosely strung blue tie. His hair is as wild as it was the last time he had seen him, at the mansion out by Lake Silence. The only glaring difference is a pair of sunglasses perched on his head, looking as if they are becoming hopelessly tangled in red-gold waves.

“Looks quite a lot like that poet you’re keen on, Endeavour Morse,” Edward says.  “I’ve seen a few look-alikes about, but this one has got the shtick down pat."

Max has no idea what to make of this.

 It’s odd—it’s been three years since the case at Lake Silence, but, with this head flung back, eyes softly closed, and mouth gently parted, Morse looks younger, somehow, than he did the last time Max had seen him.  

How in heaven’s name did he get in his house?

And more to the point, why is he here at all?

Morse must sense his and Edward’s presence, because just then, two blue eyes slide open.

And Morse jumps.

“Oh? Did I fall asleep? I’m sorry.”

His looks startled for a minute—his eyes widening as he sees Edward and then darting between the two of them.

“Oh,” Morse says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you might have company.”

Max puts up a hand.

“It’s all right, Morse,” Max says.

Edward raises his eyebrows, surprised that it’s evidently not a look a-like, after all.

“How on earth did you get into the house, Morse?” Max asks, a little more sharply than he had intended.

Morse seems taken aback by this unexpected salvo of negativity. “There’s a spare key under the large pot by your front door. I wanted to wait for you. Because I have to talk to you.”

“Oh?” Max asks.

Morse flicks an uncertain look toward Edward, then turns his gaze back to Max. “It’s police business,” he says, watching him steadily. “I want you to tell me how Barry Finch died.”

Well, that was rather to the point. Hello to you, too, Max thinks. How have you been after all these years?

Just as socially adept as ever, it seems.

Edward clears his throat. “Perhaps it would be better if I came back tonight. Would seven be good?” he asks.

 

Well, this is certainly awkward.

 

It’s true Morse is in obvious distress, but he simply can’t confide in him the matters of a case. Max will just have to muddle through, he supposes. He’s quite tempted to send the chap packing, so that he and Edward can get on with their lunch.

 

“All right,” Max sighs.

 

He walks Edward to the door.

“Sorry about this, old chap,” Max says.

“It’s all right,” Edward says. “I just thought the less I know about this, the better.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Max says. “I’m certainly not going to tell him anything.”

Edward just smiles and raises his eyebrows. “As you say, Max.”

Mas frowns.  He’s worked hard to establish himself in his profession, to earn the respect of his colleagues. It certainly isn’t as if a pair of big blue eyes could cause him to compromise his professional standards.

Edward doesn’t know him as well as he thought.

But there is one nagging concern that Max does have. Edward doesn’t feel he has to leave because . . . that is, certainly he knows that their relationship has become such that . . . well, he’s certainly not about to have his head turned by a man who’s just broken into his home, for pity’s sake.

“Of course, you might not know, but it so happens that Morse is a former colleague. This is a purely . . . ,” Max says. 

Edward laughs merrily. “You don’t suppose I’m really jealous, do you? I may not be as literary as you are, Max, but I don’t live under a rock. Even I’ve seen photographs of that suave devil he supposedly lives with. Tall, dark and handsome, eh?  If, that is,” he adds, with a bored shrug, “one goes in for that sort of thing.”

Max looks at him, a twist of a wry smile on his lips. “Meaning you don’t, I suppose?”

“Always seemed too overdone to me,” Edward agrees. Then he puts a hand to Max's cheek and laughs again.  “You’re absolutely adorable, Max, and I love you, but I hardly think you can afford to set up a poet in a chateau on a pathologist’s salary.”  Then he gives him a quick peck, “See you tonight, old chap.”

And then he heads out the door.

Max scowls.

He might have at least _pretended_ to be concerned.

Oh, what rot. 

Sometimes, Max, he thinks to himself, you _can_ be entirely a fool. 

 

******

In the living room, Morse is looking rather confused; it's as if he had planned this little visit for quite some time, and it isn’t going as he had thought it would. 

“I brought you a gift,” he says, hopefully, handing him a parcel.

Well, this is certainly unexpected. He would never have imagined prickly, standoffish Morse breaking into his house and brining him a gift.

Max unwraps the thing—it’s actually a fairly nice cap and scarf.

“I remembered you said you liked to go fishing,” Morse says.

“Thank you, Morse,” he says. “That was thoughtful.”

Odd way to make up for breaking into one’s house, but it is an _attempt_ at social grace, one supposed. He never would have thought that Morse would have remembered that he liked to fish. It’s more than he might have expected.

“You can call me Endeavour, if you want. I don’t really go by Morse anymore. Thursday is the only one who keeps calling me that.”

It’s difficult to think of him as anything but Morse, but . . . . “All right, Endeavour. Then you’ll have to call me Max.”

“All right,” he pauses, as if testing out the word. “Max.”

Then Morse raises his eyebrows; his blue eyes grow wide expectant. “So, will you? Will you tell me?”

“Of what possible interest can the Finch autopsy be to you, Mo. . . Endeavour? As I understand it, you are no longer with the police.”

 

“Because,” Endeavour says. “I am Barry Finch.”

He says this with such an air of simplicity, that, again, Max is not sure that to think. Is the man quite mad, after all?

He sees the perplexity on Max’s face and hastens to explain. “Well, actually, I’m not. Perhaps I’m Christopher. Or maybe Nick. Or Pippa. Although we had a Pippa, too. I’m not quite sure how far to stretch the metaphor, not knowing them well. Perhaps it’s more right to say _we_ are _them_ , rather than trying to find specific parallels.”

Um, all right, Max thinks.

Endeavour’s face grows even more solemn, almost pained. “You were there, that night, attending Henry’s body. The night he killed himself. I saw you.”

“Yes,” Max says carefully.

“Were you told much about it? About what had happened?”

“A bit, I suppose,” Max says.

“Were you told about what led up to it all? About Bunny? About . . . About Richard Williams?”

Max struggles to keep his expression steady at this. By “Bunny” he supposes Morse, or Endeavour, rather, is referring to Edmund Corcoran.

And then.

The Richard Williams case. Thursday had offered to show him the file, but there was no need.  By the summer before his final year of medical school, Max was already leaning toward a career in forensic pathology. It appealed to him, somehow, the idea of being a voice for a voiceless. Perhaps because it was by then he had fully realized that one of the central facts of his life would have to remain ever unvoiced.

 

That July, he was sent to shadow a pathologist as an intern. The second case he attended was that of Richard Williams, a middle-aged farmer, husband and father—no known enemies, evidently a quiet, introspective sort of fellow, who was found dead in his own fields. It was disturbing. There was no evidence of any murder weapons. It was if he had been set upon in some sort of frenzy, ripped apart in some savage, primal attack. Max had not seen the likes since.

“I’m familiar with both cases, yes,” he says. An understatement if there ever was one. There are probably few people on earth as familiar with Edmund Corcoran and Richard Williams than he is, being acquainted with them both inside and out.

“I had a few friends at Oxford,” Endeavour says. “They were, we were, a bit like The Wildwood, the group that Finch was working for, when he died. We were young, and we had—or they had—quite a bit of money. We were classics students. And a few them had an idea to stage a bacchanal. We were the special ones, they said, who could see beyond the everyday world. Who had permission to transgress, to see what was beyond the door.”

“Yes,” Max says cautiously. 

“Well, one night, it all, let’s just say, it all went wrong. Or rather, it all went right, depending on how you look at it. What I mean to say is: it worked. I saw things. Heard things that couldn’t be real, but, at the time, they seemed more than real. Vividly, tangibly, unmistakably real. I wanted to get away from it, from the others, so I started running. And I was running. And, well. I didn’t feel human anymore. I felt like I was a deer. And I cleared brooks and stones and logs that I don’t think I should have been able to clear. I remember looking down and seeing it all flying beneath me in the dark. . .

“And then I heard it: screaming. Terrible cries. And I thought, it sounded like Dionysus, bellowing in the night. And so, I kept running.”

Max clears his throat, struggles to keep his face impassive, to look as if Morse had just been telling him about an uneventful jaunt to the post office. Because he is fairly certain he knows where this is going.

“But it couldn’t have been Dionysus. Not really. I mean, you don’t believe in such things, do you?”

“No,” Max says.

“No,” Morse repeats. “I didn’t understand it for years and years. But now what I think is . . . is . . .  that it wasn’t Dionysus that I heard. It was that poor man. Richard Williams. Screaming as he was killed. Pleading, maybe for help. And I ran. I just ran and ran and ran.”

Morse looks down, and something seems to flicker across his face.

“I didn’t know. I really didn’t. And then I . . .. Well, never mind.”

Then he looks back up, his large blue eyes focused on Max, so that he feels it’s impossible to look away—it’s like falling through a cloudless sky, exhilarating, but terrifying: at once you are soaring and waiting for that inevitable moment when you’ll hit the ground.

 “So, you can see, can’t you? How it’s all the same as what happened before?  It’s all fun and games until someone ends up dead. And even then, they think they can get away with it. Toss the person behind like they are so much garbage, leave them dying in their own fields or toss their body behind a pub yard. And the last time I did nothing. Actually,” he laughs bitterly, a little madly, “I think I made things worse. But I should know better now.”

He looks down, clasps his hands in his lap. His last words come out strangled, barely audible. “If I don’t do something to make things right, then what use am I?”

Max watches him carefully. “I understand why you would want to help, Morse—ah, Endeavour—but why not assist Thursday, then? You’ve been in touch with him, surely?”

Endeavour huffs a rueful laugh at this. “Thursday won’t let me help at all. He’s completely frozen me out. I could see it—the minute it happened. I don’t know what I did wrong. When I first came to Thames Valley, when I first saw Thursday, he let me go out with him, to Maplewick Hall.”

Max stills at that. He understands that Thursday would be excited to have his protégé back, but he can’t help but wonder at the propriety of him bringing Endeavour out on an inquiry.

Endeavour seems to sense this, and his blue eyes blaze up in anger.

“The Wildwood dropped by uninvited to my house. Why shouldn’t I repay the call, if I want?” he says.

The switch from an air of melancholy to anger takes Max quite by surprise.

“So,” Max says calmly. “It sounds as if he’s been allowing you an ear.”

But Endeavour shakes his head. “When we got back, he wouldn’t let me come with him the autopsy.”

“I should say not,” Max snorts. “You wouldn’t have been permitted by me to enter the mortuary even if he had tried to bring you along.”

“No. It’s not just that,” he says. And his voice is barely above a whisper. “He . . . he looks at me differently, now. He was the last person who didn’t and now he does, too. I can tell, when he talks to me, he's just patronizing me, now. Then, we were playing cards last night, and he got angry with me because I couldn’t remember the rules . . .”  He looks up and waves his hands defensively, “but I didn’t grow up playing cards . . . my father was the sort who would take a bet on how many crows landed on a fence, so my mother didn’t like to encourage that sort of thing.”

“Well,” Max says bracingly, “Inspector Thursday has seemed to be under a bit of a strain of late; it may have nothing to do with you, Mo . . Endeavour.”

But Endeavour shakes his head. “He . . . Once, when I was still living at the lake house, he came to see me, and he said . . . he said that he wished he just made me leave that night. At Blenheim Vale. I could tell . . . that he blames himself sometimes . . . for what’s wrong with me . . . and, if I could solve the case . . . then maybe, he wouldn’t look at me like that . . . and we could all break away . . . finally leave that all behind.”

Max, again, feels a bit uncertain. It’s quite a story. As a doctor, though, he can’t help but seize on the one phrase, the words Endeavour seemed to mutter as an afterthought: _For what’s wrong with me._

“What _is_ wrong with you?” he asks, carefully.

Endeavour scowls. “Nothing. Why would you say that?

 “You just said it. That Thursday blames himself. For what’s wrong with you.”

“Oh,” he says, “I don’t know. I’m just . . . I'm not the same. And I tell because . . . because people. . . . ” he pauses and looks out the window for a moment.

“Do you remember that case, when the Wolvercote Trove went missing?”

“Yes,” Max says.

“There were two dons there, when we went out to investigate. Giving us the background on the case. One of them mentioned King Harold. And Jim Strange said, “King Harold that got it in the eye?”

“And then the don turned, and sneered at him. Looked at him as if he were nothing. “And people decry the merits of the Secondary Modern! Yes, Constable, even he!” is what he said.  

“And I remember thinking how awful, for poor, poor Strange, to have to work here in Oxford, subjected to these pompous, vainglorious tossers day after day. How horrible to have to suffer that, to have people look at you that way.

“I mean, what was wrong with what Strange had said? It was as good a way of clarifying who King Harold was as any. It’s what he was known for, after all, his death and defeat at the Battle of Hastings. Would it have made more sense for Strange to have said: 'Oh, King Harold who inherited Wessex in 1053? King Harold who married Edith of Mercia?' I don’t think so.”

Max nods, encouragingly. He’s beginning to wonder if this story has any sort of point.

“So you see, it’s ironic how life goes, how the tides turn.  I felt so sorry for Strange, having to put up with that look.” He sighs and tries to smile a watery smile. “And now people look at me like that all the time. Sometimes, I can understand, why, I do. But other times, I just don’t know . . .”

Max knows his next question is bound to get Mor. . . Endeavour’s back up, but he feels it’s his responsibility to ask: “If you think that’s so, Endeavour, have you been to a doctor, since you’ve . . .”

And sure enough, Endeavour’s eyes flash at this. “What business is that of yours?”

Max raises his eyebrows. “You aren’t the only one who takes his job seriously, Morse. I did take an oath, after all. You come here, completely unannounced, I might add, asking for privileged information—and then casually drop that you have these concerns. It's my duty to follow up on words like that.”

Endeavour’s wide, mobile mouth compresses at this. His eyes dart to the door, and Max can see he’s thinking about leaving . . . that the only reason he’s considering staying at all is that he’s still hoping he might get the information he’s come for.

“Yes,” he says, tersely. “Kay and Tony took me someplace in London. When I first got out.”

From reading the salacious stories in the newspaper that followed Winter’s suicide, one gathers that by “Kay” and “Tony,” Endeavour means Lady Katherine Belborough and Lord Anthony Chalbourne. It never ceased to surprise him to have learned that Morse, of the cheap suits and basement bedsits, had once run in such company.

“Well,” Max says, with as detached a professional air as he can muster, “what did he say?”

“I don’t know,” Endeavour says. “I wasn’t much interested at the time.”

“Well, would this Kay or Tony remember what was said?”

“Presumably, as it must have been one of them who paid for it,” Endeavour says. “I certainly hadn’t any money at the time.”

He shakes his head, as if to shake the thought away.

“Besides that’s not to the point. Don’t you see?” he says. “If I can solve the case, then none of that matters, and I can try to make it up a bit. For what I did. I can make it up to Richard Williams. And to Thursday.”

Max sits, dumbfounded. Surely, the fellow can’t be blaming himself for the Richard Williams case, for Blenheim Vale.  The stories in the papers seemed difficult to follow—the falling out among friends, the infighting, the aspersions of blame—but nowhere was it suggested that Morse had anything to do with the Williams murder. And as for Blenheim Vale, Morse was the one, after all, who had been toted off to prison, who served as the sacrificial lamb in the cover up. How can the fellow think that any of that was  _his_ fault?

Endeavour grows impatient with Max’s silence. Then he sighs. “Oh, never mind,” he says. “You’re right, I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I know you can’t help me. No one can help me.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m the only one who can help me.”

He begins walking to the hall. “I’m really sorry I ruined your lunch with all of this,” he says.

“Morse . . . Endeavour . . .” Max says.

 

Endeavour stops but he doesn’t turn.

Max takes a deep breath.

“It appeared that he had been strangled. Finch. But the cause of death wasn’t asphyxia. His heart gave out.”

Endeavour stands perfectly still. “Can you be sure the strangulation didn’t cause the heart seizure?” he asks quietly, without turning around. It’s as if he’s afraid to look at him, afraid to speak too loudly, lest he halt this flow of information.

Max takes the scarf from the table and approaches Endeavour to demonstrate, “Fairly certain, yes,” Max says, “you see . . .”

Just then, Endeavour whips around and grabs Max’s wrist tightly in his hand, his eyes wide.

“What are you doing?” he says.

They stand for a moment, frozen, Endeavour’s eyes wide on Max’s. Christ. He’s frightened the man completely out of his wits.

Endeavour’s intense gaze falters, falls to where his hand is wrapped around Max’s wrist. He shakes his head as if shaking off some thought.

 “I was merely trying to demonstrate,” Max begins crisply. . .

“Sorry,” Endeavour says, at the same time. 

Well. They’ll switch roles, that’s all. He can make his point just as well, either way. He thrusts the scarf to Endeavour. “Here,” he says. “Take this.”

Endeavour reaches forward, then hesitates.

“Go on,” Max says.

“All right,” Endeavour says, taking the scarf.

“Now wrap it around my throat as if to strangle me. Go on,” Max urges.

Endeavour looks at him as if he’s completely barmy. Ironic, considering Endeavour’s earlier complaint. But then, he complies, throwing it over Max’s head so that it falls gently over his throat.

“Now. What’s the first thing I’m going to do?”

Endeavour laughs. It’s a funny sort of laugh—airy and a bit nervous; somewhat jarring considering how his eyes had been crackling just a moment before. “Try to get it off,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“Ah, try, yes.”

Max lifts his hands to the scarf to pull on it, as he would as if he were trying to free himself. “Now, in a case like this, one would expect to find abrasions, scratches to the neck, the victims’ own skin under their fingernails, from where the victim struggled to break free.”

“And that’s not the case with Barry Finch?”

“No,” Max says.

Endeavour steps back, pulling the scarf with him, so that it slips over Max's shoulder. 

“So, when he was strangled, he was already dying. But why strangle a dying man?” Endeavour muses.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Max says, “I’m more concerned as to what would stop the heart of a seemingly healthy twenty-four-year old.”

Endeavour stands for a moment, one narrow hand circling his throat, lost in thought. It’s an expression Max recognizes, one he knows well.

“I wonder . . .” he begins.

“Yes?” Max asks.

“Is there any chance of a lift?”

******

Soon, they are leaving the outskirts of Oxford.

“Sorry about your lunch . . . Are you and Edward . . .?” he lets the question drop in the air.

“Hmmmmmm,” Max says noncommittally.

“Sorry,” Endeavour says. Then he flashes him a devilish grin.  “Goodness, I hope it was just lunch I’ve interrupted. I’ve been quite the cock blocker at every turn, it seems.”

Max blinks in surprise. He can’t say he’s heard the term before, but it doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to figure out what it must mean. It hardly seems something the reticent Morse he knew would pop out with.

“I don’t know what Bix expects. Does he really think I’m going to go down on him with the Thursdays right down the hall?  Can you imagine?” He shudders and bats lightly at his head, sending his hair flying, as if to drive the horrifying idea out of his mind.

Max wouldn’t have guessed that he and this Bixby fellow were actually staying with the Thursdays. He has to agree with Morse there. The idea does not sound particularly enticing.

“I wondered why he so jumped at their invitation. It’s funny the way things turn out. I never would have thought.”

The change in subject seems a bit abrupt.

“What do you mean?” Max asks.

“Well, you always seemed to find certain things or people as trying as I did. I wondered sometimes if you might like to go to a concert after work, or go for a pint. But whenever I tried to ask you, you never seemed to want to look at me. I started to think you didn’t like me much, that maybe you thought those things Jakes used to say about me were true, that perhaps you thought if you were alone with me, I would jump you.” He laughs delightedly at this.

Max swallows.

It’s strange to hear Endeavour laugh thus—it’s a clear ringing sound, a laugh of which he never would have thought Morse capable.

Odd, that he should learn the sound of that laugh at the end of one of the saddest sentences he’s ever heard.

It’s a cruel thing, this need for secrecy, for discretion, that has so ruled Max’s life.

It’s quite probable that he and Morse were never slated for any grand romance.

But it is very likely that his defensive standoffishness, his need to conceal who he really was, had almost certainly cost him what might have been a very fine friendship.

“You know,” Endeavour says. “I thought of calling you when I first got to France.”

Or. Perhaps it was not too late.

“I wish you would have. I would have been happy to hear from you.”

Endeavour laughs again. “Don’t be so sure of that. I was going to hit you up for airfare back to London. I started to think, ‘What am I doing here? I don’t even know this man’s name, for God’s sake.’”

Max frowns.

“Well, surely you know the man’s name, Morse.”

Endeavour raises his eyebrows, “Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so. No one’s ever heard a thing at all about any Joss Bixby before around ‘55. It seems he popped out of nowhere,” he laughs blithely. . .  “just as if he leaped from Zeus’ skull."

All right, Max thinks.

"You can drop me here,” Endeavour says.

Again, the abrupt change of subject throws Max. He startles and looks at Endeavour, bemused. There is no building in sight: it seems to be merely a random point on a tree-lined road.

“It may have very well escaped your notice, M. . . Endeavour, but we are in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yes,” Endeavour says. “That’s fine. This way you don’t have to be complicit in anything.”

Max feels his heart sink. “Complicit?” he stutters.

Oh, hell.

 “Sorry,” Endeavour says. “That was a poor word choice. I’m not planning on doing anything illegal. I just mean, this way, if anyone asks where you saw me last, you can honestly say, ‘I don’t know.’”

This seems hardly comforting. Especially since he’s just realized that he _is_  now complicit in whatever Endeavour is up to.

But Endeavour is looking at him so steadfastly, he feels almost powerless to disobey. He stops the car. 

“Thanks for the lift,” Endeavour says. And then he climbs out of the passenger's seat and swings his bag over his shoulder. Before he goes, he puts his hands on the passenger seat door.

“We are friends now? Aren’t we?”

“I suppose so,” Max says. “Since my career, such as it is, lies in your hands.”

“What?” Endeavour asks, confused. “Oh. I wouldn’t tell anyone.” Then his face lights up. “I know . . . even if I did accidentally let something slip—I was just at Thames Valley this morning. I’ll just say I overheard someone speaking about it when I was there.”

“Thames Valley?” Max asks. “What were you doing there?”

A wave of disquiet casts a brief shadow over his face, but Endeavour seems to shake it away. “It would probably be better for you,” he says. “If you didn’t know.”

“Oh,” Max says faintly.

“Yes, well,” Endeavour says, casting about for something to soften that last bit, “thank you again for the lift.” 

With that, he sets off down the road, his bag bouncing jauntily by his side. He seems to know where he’s going, at least. And his mood certainly seems to have shifted dramatically, that’s for certain.

And why shouldn’t it have? Max thinks ruefully. Endeavour is obviously feeling that he has a new hope, a fresh lead on the case. After all he, Max, just ended up, in spite of himself, giving him just the information he wanted.

 

Suddenly, Max doesn’t know which is more galling: the fact that, after three years, Morse has been able to waltz back into his life and hold him captivated by those forget-me-not eyes, or the fact that Edward apparently knows him better than he knows himself.

Max watches for a few minutes, before making a three-point turn.  

He feels loath to leave him out here, but, if they are friends now, he supposes he’ll just have to trust the fellow.

 

But, somehow, Max feels he owes an apology to Jim Strange.

He may or may not have hit upon the answer.

But Strange is the first one, in all of this while, it seems, to have thought at least to have asked the question.

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

 

At Maplewick Hall, the girls are lounging around the pool; for a wild moment, it’s almost as if he’s in Pippa’s back garden.

And there she is: the girl, Pippa, stretched out in a lounge chair, but she’s blonde, whereas their Pippa was a brunette. Their Pippa is reading a copy of _Justine_ aloud to Anna-Britt; they laugh, and it’s a conspiratorial laugh, as if they are the first generation to have discovered Sade.

Susan had had a copy, too. Endeavour wonders if they’ve got a dog-eared copy of Catullus somewhere about, as well. Perhaps not. They are pop stars, not classics students.

_Justine._

Well, that does a lot toward validating that theory.

Could the strangulation have been accidental, then? A sex game gone wrong?

 

Henry had had a mania for that sort of thing. He had gone through a phase where he had become convinced that it might prove to be part of the answer he was looking for. A way to tear away the veil between this world and the realm of the gods, a way to see the terrible beauty of what lay beyond.

He had tried it out on all of them, except Kay, who had told him to “shove off” and Bunny, who seemed to be the only human being on earth who held no sexual appeal for him.

 

But, no.  The answer couldn’t be that simple. According to DeBryn, it was heart failure that caused Barry Finch’s death, not strangulation.

 

Heart failure . . . strangulation . . . how could one be linked with the other?

 

Could pure panic be enough to stop one’s heart? Pagan had certainly been terrified enough, watching Henry’s dark eyes grow dim.

Theirs had been a particularly complicated situation, though—what were the chances of that same web being replicated among this group?

Henry was difficult to decipher: sometimes, it seemed he wanted Pagan, sometimes, it seemed he wanted Susan back. And sometimes, it seemed he wouldn’t have minded both together.

Pagan can remember his heart racing as he looked into Henry’s expressionless face.  His last conscious thought had been: ‘What am I doing?’ After all, if Henry ever _did_ decide it was Susan he wanted, Pagan wasn’t making it particularly difficult for him.

Oooops.

Sorry about that, Pagan.

Susan’s fiancé is dead. Long live Susan’s fiancé.

 

Just then, Pippa—their Pippa—looks up from her book.

 “Hello,” Endeavour calls out. “Are any of the band here? I was hoping to speak with them.”  

Before she can answer, a dark-haired girl, her hair slicked back from the water, pulls herself up at the side of the pool. “Oh, it’s you, then,” she says. Emma—that’s what her name was. “Did you change your mind about the song?”

“No,” Endeavour says, flashing his card. “I’m here to ask a few questions. About Barry Finch. Can I speak to them?”

“What? You’re not working with the police, are you?” the girl asks, bewildered.

“After a fashion,” Endeavour says.

“Huh. I wonder why. We all wondered what you were doing with that man here the other day. He seems like a complete fascist.”

She swims over to the ladder and climbs out, twisting her hair to dry it as she approaches. “I’m Emma,” she says. “Emma Carr. We didn’t really get the chance to talk the other day.”

He extends his hand to take hers. “I’m Endeavour,” he says.

“I know who you are,” she says, and she laughs, and it’s the same tinkling laugh that Susan had, like the sound her hands made trailing up and down the piano keys, hitting a cascade of notes.

“Well, they’ve all gone to London. Nick is the only one here, and if you want to find him, you’ll have your work cut out for you,” she says. “He’s in his enchanted place.”

“His what?”

“His enchanted place; it’s where he goes to think. Come on,” she says. “I’ll show you.”

She starts waking toward the lake. He follows her over green lawns and then under green leaves… the world has reached that singular level of end-of-summer madness—the leaves are as vivid a green as they can achieve before they begin their fade into yellow; the sky exploded into the sharpest blue possible before it gently begins its long fade into November gray.

Emma has gotten a bit ahead of him. She turns to face him, and starts walking backwards. Endeavour sort of wishes she would stop that. He keeps feeling like he should watch where she’s going for her, lest she run into a tree.

“Shall I tell you something?” she asks.

“If you like,” Endeavour says.

“You know that song. “Jennifer Sometimes?” It’s about me. Nick wrote it and put my name in it.”

“I thought you said your name was Emma,” he says, confused.

“It is. Emma Jennifer Dabney Carr. He just used the Jennifer bit.”

“Oh,” Endeavour says. “Did you go to school together, then, with Nick?”

“No,” she laughs. “I just met him after a show. Pippa and I went back stage one night, and we just sort of stayed on.”

 

Soon, they reach the bank of the lake, where an old row boat sits, pulled up into the grass and mud. It’s just like the one at Tony’s aunt’s house.

Emma points off into the distance. “It’s somewhere out there,” she says. “Just head that way.” Then she tilts her head and chirps, “Goodbye.” And with that, she disappears back through the trees.

Well. All right.

Endeavour climbs carefully into the boat, and it rocks beneath him. He sits on the back bench, grasps the oars, and, with one shove, sends the boat churning away from the shore.

He had forgotten how much he loved to row. On one quiet summer day, much like this one, Bruce and Kay had found an abandoned row boat floating upside down in the lake behind Tony’s aunt’s house. With a second boat, they were able to stage races, and Pagan had always won, even when his boat was overloaded with passengers. Bruce was the only one who even stood a chance.

Endeavour pulls at the oars and looks into the water. It changes with every stroke—it’s wine dark and it’s sun-lit and it’s deep and unfathomable and it’s a shallow mirror all at the same time.

God, it’s hot.

He wishes he could just jump in.

 Under the water, it’s easy to let everything go blank, to drift. Under the water, the world is quiet and distant and buoyant.

He leans over the side of the boat and looks into the lake; out of the water, his reflection looks back at him. And for a moment, he feels just as if he is back there, exactly as if he’s in row boat at Tony’s aunt’s house in the country.

 

But this set isn’t at all much like his friends at Oxford. He particularly doesn’t understand the girls in this group. The seventies are supposed to be the decade of women’s lib, but these girls seem content to drag around in the boys’ wake, little more that playthings.

Susan had in many ways been the leader of their set—at her old boarding school, she was renowned to be such an utter dictator that the other girls had given her the nickname of Caesar, an appellation she desperately worked to shed once Morse became Pagan, and the matching nicknames proved to be irresistible fodder for Bunny’s relentless jokes.

 Pippa and Kay, for their part, had been every inch the intellectual equals of him and Henry, and they did much better academically than Tony—who was able enough, but whose vast family fortune tended to make him a bit lazy, to treat Oxford as if it were just some posh finishing school—and Bruce, who even back then couldn’t get through three pages of Plotinus before hitting the Scotch. And, certainly, they were far brighter than poor Bunny, who forced one to wonder how he had been admitted to Oxford at all.

Poor, bluff old Bunny. He realizes now, how difficult it must have been for him, living alone for all those years with that secret knowledge. On the one hand, he must have enjoyed the thrill of power, of having something to dangle over the others' heads. He had always seemed unsure of his position in the group, was always a trifle insecure, quick to take offense, to see a slight.

By rights, it should have been he and Kay—who had no money and who had not grown up amongst the rest of them—who should have felt that way. But, he supposed, being the chosen romantic consorts of two of the group’s core leaders did give them a certain status of their own accord. God knows, all attempts to include Marion into their clique seemed always to end in utter disaster.

 

Funny, to consider how they once thought themselves quite the little band of elite intellectuals. Thinking about it this way, it feels as if they resembled nothing so much as a troop of baboons.

 

But, in the end, Endeavour is sure that it wasn’t worth it to Bunny, keeping their secret as his own.

 

_Why shouldn’t Siegfried see the paper, if he wants? Bunny said. There are some very interesting articles in the local news section._

 

He understands now that Bunny wanted him to see the papers hidden by Henry: he wanted Pagan or Kay or Pippa or _someone_ to see those stories, to notice Williams had been killed on the same night as the bacchanal, to put two and two together.

And all of those late-night drunken visits Bunny had paid him, rousing him from sleep at two in the morning. Endeavour is sure now that those were all attempts at coming clean with it, of making a confession, of freeing himself from the shadows he didn’t quite know what to do with.

It’s no wonder Bunny seemed so exasperated with him sometimes.

_You must be a good policeman, Pagan, but I’d imagine you’re a pretty poor detective._

 

Endeavour rounds a curve of the lake, and then he sees it, off on the left:  It’s a round, Victorian-looking garden pavilion: some of the walls seem to be made of glass shimmering under the sun, some are open to the air.

Endeavour rows over to the bank, and then gets out, pulling the boat up into the grass. Then he’s striding up the hill.

“Hello?” he calls.

He walks up to one of the open walls of the pavilion and stops just beside an ornate copper post.

Inside, Nick Wilding is sitting lazily amidst a circle of red cushions embroidered with Indian motifs. Around him, twenty or so candles of varying sizes and heights are lit and glowing, dancing in the shade of the domed copper roof, despite the fact that its hot and bright as blazes outside.

Nick looks up.  “Hello, Endeavour,” he says, casually, as though he had been expecting him. “Would you like some wine?”

Endeavour hesitates for a moment and then enters the shadowed space, one framed with gauzy white curtains that seem to catch every slight breeze. It’s like being up in the clouds, in some other world.

“All right,” Endeavour says.

Nick reaches behind him to a small table and smiles as he pours out a glass. “One should always be drunk,” he says.

 “I suppose there is something to be said for that,” Endeavour replies.

Nick reaches up, handing him the glass, and then gestures for him to sit down.

Endeavour sinks down amidst the silken pillows, holding the glass steady in one hand. The glass, like everything else in the room, is heavily ornate—green with purple circles of glass around the rim.

Endeavour takes a sip, and then, to break the strange, unblinking gaze that Nick has fixed on him, he takes another. He glances up, but Nick is still watching him.

Somehow, it feels as if there is a strange charge to the air. Back at home, in the drawing room in Lorraine, with Bixby standing in the doorway, Endeavour had felt undaunted by this odd little set.

But now, it seemed as if the tables had turned: this time, he has infringed on Nick’s territory, and Nick, rather than sitting politely on the edge of the sofa looking somewhat abashed and embarrassed by his more aggressive older brother, looks composed and self-assured, sprawled amongst the cushions like a raja, the supreme ruler of his own little dream kingdom of one.

“I thought you might be by,” Nick says. “I have something for you.”

He gets up from his nest of pillows and makes his way through the stands of candles to a low table that runs against a back half-wall. He picks up a folio of papers and a notebook and brings them over. Endeavour recognizes them right away as his. Nick drops them lightly in his lap without comment and then returns to his place at the center of the circle.

Nick takes a deep breath and then a long draught of wine. “I don’t want to say who took them, if it’s all the same,” he says, finally. Then, he shrugs one shoulder, looking a bit pained. “It seems as if it was a bit of a group effort. I think they meant well. They didn’t understand. I’d been. . . . I’d been in a bad place. They thought if they had the right words, they could help me. But they didn’t feel they could come up with the words themselves. They didn’t understand, that . . . well, that’s not the way it works, is it?” Nick takes another sip of wine. “Anyway, I’m sorry, man. I really am.”

Endeavour runs his hand along the edge of the folio. “Thank you,” he says.

Endeavour doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand any of it. Why does it all feel so wrong, having these back again? When they were first taken, he felt he might die of the pain of it. Of having his thoughts and words ripped away from him before he had felt ready to let them go, as if they were nestlings dashed to the ground.

He should be happy, now, to have them back, but they don’t feel like his anymore. They’d been stolen, they’d been off, God only knew where, wandering away from him, caught up in this world of The Wildwood, which felt not like his woods, but like a dark, twisting wood, filled with sadness and heartbreak and death.

He pulls out one of the papers and looks at it. No. He hardly remembers writing this anymore. It’s not his. It’s just damaged goods, through and through.

He holds it up to the flame of one of the candles, letting the corner catch fire, and watches as it begins to burn, to curl and turn black.

Just then, Nick reaches forward and grabs him lightly by the wrist. He blows the paper out with a puff, like a child blowing out a birthday candle.

“Why would you do that?” Nick says.

But Endeavour can’t say. He isn’t sure if it’s the heat, or the wine, or the growing sense of lightheadedness that began to overtake him as he crossed the lake, but suddenly he can’t say what he’s doing here. What has this all been about, after all?

How did he even come to be here, to this Wonderland of a place?

Oh, yes. It all started the day he saw that limousine pull up right in front of the house . . . .

And he should be asking about something else, he knows . . . what was it?

But suddenly, he can’t help but wonder something else.  

“Why did you come all the way to France?” Endeavour asks. “Why didn’t you just write it?  The song?”

Nick sighs. “I did write one,” he says. “Only Ken didn’t think it was subtle enough. The idea was to attract attention without . . .” he breaks off, shrugs, takes a sip of wine.

“Without attracting too much attention,” Endeavour finishes.

Nick nods. “The idea was mine to begin with. I was surprised Ken had any interest, really. For Ken it was all about pushing the envelope, staying a bit edgy. Sex Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll. But the one I wrote: it was too blatant, I suppose. Also— well—to tell you the truth—it stirred up a bit of trouble. In the band. So, Ken had me change it.”

“He can do that?” Endeavour asks. He feels a twinge of sympathy for Nick. If Turner bothered him too much about something, he would just scrap it, keep it for himself, and send him something else. It would be horrible having someone like Ken breathing down his neck all of the time.

Nick laughs. “I suppose he can, since he did. Ken thought one you wrote might be more subtle, push the envelope but still sort of skate under the radar, if you know what I mean. He thought something you wrote might have a bit more gravitas, give the whole project the patina of academia. I really thought you might go for it, man.”

He takes another sip of wine and pauses, his eyes pouring over Endeavour’s face.  “You know, I can’t figure you out,” he says.

“How do you mean?”

“All of those explosive things that you write. All of your words—they seem like they are standing right on the threshold of the door, waiting to break beyond it. But there you are, living in a poky little town in the middle of nowhere, with some man in a suit.” His eyes shift and narrow, taking on a strange intensity—at once they are the light blue of water and the crackle of fire. “You do know that there’s something happening, right? Here? In the world? Everywhere?”  

Endeavour shrugs. He’s seen only too well that there are things happening. Some things that you would never have imagined could be happening.

For example, once, while somewhere, a group of children were laughing and playing tag, Ben Nimmo was slipping into madness, entombed alive within the walls of his own house.

Endeavour drains his glass.

“That’s what I’m trying to get across. In my music. But you probably don’t think much of it, do you?” Nick asks, taking his glass to refill it.

Suddenly, Endeavour feels contrite. He has been, he supposes much like those sergeants out at Carshall Newton, supercilious and dispiriting. People seem to be finding something in Nick’s songs, he supposes. He really can’t see _what_ , but it isn’t as if he has all the answers, either.

“I shouldn’t worry about what I think. I wouldn’t know much about it,” Endeavour says. He takes another draught of wine.  And then, because that does seem a little _too_ diplomatic, he adds “If it’s any consolation, I might be a bit biased—the time I heard that song, I was actually a bit terrified.”

Nick’s eyes widen at this. “Jesus,” he breathes. Then he adds, his brow furrowed, “You know, you could come away with us, if you need somewhere to go.”

Endeavour has no idea why he’s looking at him thus. Then . . .

Oh.

That’s right.

“No, no,” he says. “It was . . . Did you hear about that stolen Caravaggio? Last Spring? That was us . . . I mean, we didn’t _steal_ the thing. But, I was sort, it’s sounds a bit melodramatic to say, but, actually I was abducted. I got held ransom for the thing. I was in the thieves’ car when I heard the song.”

“Shit,” Nick says.

“So . . . well. Bixby paid some people quite a lot, I think, to keep our names out of it, so, if you don’t mind . . .”

Nick nods knowingly and looks unblinking into Endeavour’s eyes. Then he says, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Any secret you have is safe with me.”

He says the words as if they have worlds of other meanings beyond their original context, as if they are dripping with double entendre. Oh, God, how Endeavour hates that. He thought they might have a decent conversation. 

Endeavour takes a sip of wine. When he looks up, Nick is still watching him, carefully.

“You read Huxley?” Nick asks, raising his brows in question. “I want to see what’s beyond the door.”

Endeavour winces. He’s heard all of this before.

_Beauty is not soft or conciliatory._

_Beauty is found only by the strong: those who break through the barriers, who break beyond the door._

_Beauty is terror._

“There’s something else,” Nick says. “You just have to find the right key.”

Three guesses, Endeavour thinks, based on all the strange paraphernalia cluttered around the place, as to what he’s alluding to there. “Drugs,” he says, rather than asks.

“Nothing heavy. Meditation. Mushrooms. Me and Chris used to look for mushrooms after school. You ever tried ‘em?”

Endeavour shakes his head. “Only as part of an English breakfast,” he says.

 Nick huffs a small laugh.

But then Endeavour can’t help but wonder. “So, what do expect to find? ‘Beyond the door?’” It comes out a bit more sarcastically then he meant it. But. Oh well.

“The infinite,” Nick says, in a strangled voice. “Infinite possibility. Infinite love.”

 “Infinite love?” Endeavour asks, disbelievingly. “Do you believe in such a thing?”

“Of course,” Nick says. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s all right in front of you, waiting to be found.”

Endeavour rather doubts this. “Maybe in some other world that might be possible, but certainly not in this one.”

“Why would you say that?” Nick asks.

“There are too many contingencies, obstacles, too many chances for people to miss one another. Too many different sorts of people, really. How can they ever hope to understand one another? All the love in the world can’t always be enough.”

“Of course, it can,” Nick says. “Why wouldn’t it?”

“Well,” Endeavour begins. How to explain? “Well, some people want to take the world by both hands, they are always grasping, seeking more—money or experiences or lands or lovers—they want to have everything—to burn with that hard gem-like flame. Some people aren’t as brave: they only want to walk in the woods and to pick pears and listen to records. They don’t want scores of lovers, they want only one who they trust not to . . . . And if the first sort of person loves the second sort, he is bound to eventually be disappointed . . .” Endeavour shrugs. “Love is a short bridge. The distances between people are wide.”

Nick laughs. “This doesn’t sound purely hypothetical. Is this you and your moneybags, then? I sort of wondered what you’re doing with him.”

Endeavour stops short. Was that what he had meant? Had he been saying all of that out loud?

Suddenly, he decides, he just doesn’t like being here. He doesn’t want to be here at all.

Nick reaches forward and brushes his thumb along his cheekbone. “Picking pears under the trees can be every bit as beautiful as the brightest gold and crystal palace, when the sun is at the right angle. Maybe you just need to find someone who understands that. Then you might see it.”

“See what?” Endeavour asks, uncertainly.  

“That we’re all just angels who fell from grace,” he says, his voice beginning to crack. “Every one of us. There is no shame. No guilt. Everyone vibrating at the same frequency as the universe.”

Endeavour pulls away. Guilt?  Suddenly Nick’s eyes seem to fill with tears. Guilt for what?

“If something happened with Barry Finch . . . ” Endeavour begins.  

“Nothing happened! He left. He left and he died. They took him.”

“Who?” Endeavour asks, and his heart is suddenly racing. He’s terrified that he might already know Nick’s answer. “Who took him?”

Nick looks at him fiercely, as if he’s willing him to understand something.  “The gods,” he whispers.

_The gods?_

Suddenly, Endeavour wants to leave.

For isn’t that just what he had believed? Whom he had imagined to be responsible for a night gone out of control years and years ago? A Greek god with terrible eyes and a wine-stained mouth who reared upon him in the woods and sent him flying?

Endeavour stands up, and the world is spinning.

It was wrong, what he told Dr. De. . . Max.

He may have been the scholarship student running with a crowd flying wildly over his head, but, at the end of the day, he isn’t Barry Finch.

He’s Nick Wilding.

“I have to leave now,” Endeavour says.

 

 

*********

 

It’s about a six-mile walk to the lake house, Endeavour figures, if he cuts across the land straight southeast and then rounds the lake. The only difficulty with this route is that it will lead him straight across Bruce and Kay’s property. If it still is Bruce and Kay’s property.

Are they still together? Endeavour doesn’t know. He’s not sure if he wants to know. He hasn’t spoken to any of them since that morning when they all stumbled out of Bixby’s house in Oxfordshire and into the dawn, a dawn that could not help but mark the beginning of a new era for them, their alliances and rivalries and romances all thrown up into the air, the previous dynamics of the group turned into a rug pulled out from beneath them.

He doesn’t much want to run into them. If Kay is still with Bruce, he doesn’t really want to know. She might have blinked and looked away. She might not have. Who knows?

He doesn’t much want to think about that set. He wants to figure out this new one.

His trip to Maplewick Hall might have confirmed his suspicions in some matters, but in others, he’s still completely in the dark. It’s clear that the murderer is someone within the group, that it's the result of some rivalry or romance gone wrong, some jealousy or blame or fear . . . just as Bunny’s had been.

He’s certain its Ken or Christopher or Stix or Nick or Emma or Pippa or Anna-Britt. But which of them? He tends to think it was not Nick—or else, Endeavour thinks, he could not tell himself that lie about the “gods” so easily. But who knows? Perhaps he just might be even better at lying to himself than Pagan had been.

If only he could see the evidence that Thursday and Strange must have gathered.

He remembers dimly how he once sat in the Cowley CID, looking over the papers pinned to the wall—how things would jump out at him.

_Evelyn, Grace, Ben . . . Every Good Boy . . ._

He’ll have to go back to Thames Valley, see what they have, see what he can piece together. He’ll go early tomorrow morning, before the place is too crowded. He’ll just go in discretely, as himself, not in Bixby’s jacket and sunglasses, as Inspector Morse, International Division.

 

He wishes he hadn’t done that, now. He should have just said he was Constable Morse. He had only called himself Inspector Morse because, somehow, he thought that Constable Morse would not have enough authority to get the man who was sleeping at his desk on his feet and moving.

But now, by calling himself that, he feels almost as if he’s unleashed another Morse . . . a Morse who—in that universe he dreamt of as he sat at Strange’s typewriter—stayed on as Thursday’s bagman and eventually went on to become an inspector. Inspector Morse. The name makes him feel uneasy, as if it’s a name he should know, as if there are unknown worlds behind it, worlds he’ll never see.  

 

 He walks on and the day is hot and lovely and green. The sun filtering through the leaves turns them into stain-glass windows, filtering green shadows on the forest floor.

He quickens his pace as he crosses the Belboroughs’ land, keeping his eyes keen for Bruce out on horseback or for signs of a summer picnic.

In another hour, the sun is starting to its fall into the west, and he’s reaching the boundaries of Tony’s parents’ land, nearing the lake house.

 

And there he is.

Could it really be so simple?

 

But wait: It’s Pagan, or it seems to be Pagan, but there are definite mistakes. He’s a tad taller, his hair a shade darker.

As he approaches, he realizes it’s not Pagan at all. It's a man slightly taller and broader than he is. But he’s dressed like he often does, and his hair is like his, curling and tucked behind his ears. 

Well, that’s odd.

But then, a troop of four more people come traipsing through the trees; they are loud and laughing. It seems odd to see them thus, in a place where he had once watched for Bixby in the darkness, silent under silent stars.

 

It’s a boy and three girls. They look like they might be first or second years from Oxford. And again, the boy is dressed much like him. And one of the girls, too. She even has a bag, much like his, slung across her shoulder.

Well, this certainly makes it easy for him to blend in unseen, at any rate. Endeavour’s not sure what to make of it.

He keeps a steady pace through the trees when another young girl passes, one with long, bright red hair that catches the sun. She, too, is wearing a white shirt and blue tie, but with jeans and tall boots.

As she passes, she looks up and smiles. Then she frowns and, in a soft movement that leaves Endeavour slightly startled, she catches her hand in the crook of his arm.

She scrutinizes his face. “You’re really him, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Endeavour Morse?”

Endeavour lifts his sunglasses up. What else is to be done? If he denies it and pretends to be someone else, he might find himself trying to fit that person into the puzzle, too.

“Wow,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

Endeavour shrugs. “I was just looking for someone I used to know,” he says. “Someone who used to lived here. But I think he must have left. I didn’t know . . . “

“That there would be so many people here?” the girl prompts.

“Yes,” Endeavour says.

“Has anyone else recognized you’re here?” she asks.

“No,” Endeavour says.

 “Well, I’m really glad I’m the one who did,” she says.  “I’ve been hoping you would come back to Britain sometime. Because I’ve been wanting to tell you. You saved my life.”

Endeavour startles at this. “What do you mean?”

The girl casts her eyes down and says, “The place where I grew up . . . it was a gray, unfeeling nothing.” She shrugs and looks up and smiles. “Then one day, I was in a bookshop and saw your book. I started reading it and . . . well, for the first time, I felt there was beauty in the world.”

Endeavour can’t quite comprehend this. Could it really be so? Could he have made a difference somehow, in someone’s life, not as Morse, who was afraid of nothing, but as hopeless Endeavour? Is he someone’s Rosalind Stromming?

“I don’t know what to say,” Endeavour says at last.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she says. She pats his arm where she had been holding onto it as a gesture of farewell and walks on. It seems unfair somehow, that she’s given him so much.

“Wait,” he calls. She stops and turns. He digs through his bag and pulls out a set of papers.

He pulls one apart from the rest. “You can have this, if you like,” Endeavour says. “It matches your hair.”

The girl puts a self-conscious hand to her hair and smiles ruefully.

“I’ve always hated my hair,” she says.

“Why?” Endeavour asks. “It’s beautiful. It’s like the sun setting over water. That’s why I picked this one for you,” he stops and holds it out uncertainly. “If you want it.” 

“You’re giving me a poem?” she asks.

“If you want it.” Endeavour says.

 “Wow,” she breathes, taking the paper from his hand. “Thank you.”

Endeavour shrugs and smiles. And the girl smiles, too. Then she turns and makes her way back through the trees. She looks back and waves shyly before she completely disappears around the curve of the path.

 

He watches until she is gone and then stands there for a moment, wondering whether or not he should bother continuing on to the lake house. Pagan would never stay here with this many people about.

Suddenly, a summer breeze stirs up and the wind catches the papers in his hand. They rustle softly, just as the leaves in the trees. It’s the most peaceful sound; it’s as if the world is saying, “hush.”

Endeavour takes one of the papers and tosses it into the air. The wind catches it, and it flitters up into the branches. It looks like a white bird taking flight.

He can’t help but wonder: how all of them would look, free and sailing through the air?

He gathers the papers in his hands and waits, watching the trees. When the next stiff breeze blows up, he tosses the lot of them up into the sky. Some catch the current and circle like white birds, some fall and rustle across the leaves on the forest floor, like animals fleeing from a cage. He watches for a while as they drift and blow, catching in branches and rolling further away across the ground.

It’s perfect. He got the poems back, just like Bixby wanted. And then he let them go, just like he wanted.

The girl with the flaming hair seemed happy with the poem he had given her. Perhaps, just as Pagan had once found Bixby here, the poems will wander about and find in these woods the people they were meant to find.

For the first time all day, he feels happy, as if he’s finally made one decision that’s right. The white papers look just like he feels, sometimes, drifting here and there, blowing where the world takes them. And they are him, really. He wrote them and they are his, not The Wildwood’s.

But wait: If the poems are him, then who is he?

Ah.

He puts the sunglasses back down on his face, and he’s Bixby.

He’s Bixby and he stands cool and collected and nonplussed. And it’s not that hard to bear, having the papers circling around him like birds. He can look at them. Or not look at them.

Could Bixby maybe learn not to mind a bit of disorder so much?

_Let me be to you as a circling bird._

Endeavour goes over to a tree and sits down beneath it, leaning against the trunk. It’s not bad at all, just watching the papers fly and go still, fly and go still. It’s like a snowstorm in the heat of July. It’s sort of nice, really.

But Bixby likes things to be just so, to be done with a proper style.

He sits up and regards the papers with a critical eye.

That’s fine then, he thinks, but his hands are twitching. He wants to take them and at least put them in a neat pile, for heaven’s sake.

Endeavour considers them again. Then he leans back against the tree. No, they’re fine. And if they blow about too much, all you have to do is blink and look away. Go about your business like they aren’t there.

He takes out his notebook—maybe he’ll tear out some of these pages, too, let them free in the woods as well.

 He opens the notebook and, suddenly, he feels as if his heart has stopped.

It’s there:  at once strange and unfamiliar, but, yet, in his own handwriting--a terse message to himself from months ago.

14 AUGUST

 

Oh.

Oh please no.

No. no. no.

If he was going to do this, to let these last poems go, then he should have stayed home in Lorraine, looking though the papers in his study for possible replacements or writing something else to send in to Turner.

He can hear Turner’s voice now. “Thirty pages of white space and the printer reserved for the third week of the month? What the hell, Endeavour?”

Oh, dear God.

What he should do is go and gather the things up again, but he hasn’t the heart to do it. Once they’ve tasted freedom, who is he to take that back?

And he can’t even give Turner the advance check back, either, because he’s already given that to . . .

He can hear Bixby’s voice now. “Well, if you had your own account, you could have at least given Turner back the money, couldn’t you, Endeavour?”

“Oh, God,” Endeavour moans, resting his head on his knees.

 

He stays like that for a while, until the world stops spinning and forms solid again beneath him.

“You OK, man? You having a bad trip or something?”

Endeavour looks up. And it’s two young men—one with long hair and a T-shirt that with all sorts of people on it and the words “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and a man who is dressed just like he is, but with dark eyes and darker hair.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m fine.”

They regard him for a moment, and then, thank Christ, decide to move on, to leave him alone.

He hears them once they are a few feet away. “Hey,” one of them says to the other. “Look at this, man.”

They must have found one of the poems. He wonders which one it was. But wait. What had he just been thinking about?

Oh. That it looks like he’s on his way to breaking his contract with Turner. He should have asked, he supposes, what would happen to him if he ever did that. He doesn’t have any idea.

Well, he’ll just have to add it to the list, that’s all: solve the Finch case, find Pagan and Morse, come up with thirty more poems in time to replace these he’s just set free in the woods.

 

He laughs a bit and stops. He doesn’t much like the sound of that laugh. It sounds a bit wild.

 

Well, all right.

 

He gets up.

There certainly is no point in looking for Pagan here. He would never stay in these woods with all of these people. Perhaps he had the same idea he had. Perhaps he went to find Morse.

There is only one way to find out for certain. It feels, after all, as if he’s tried everything else. He has one pound five left in his pocket. Enough to stop at a call box and get a cab for part of the way there. He doesn’t think he could possibly, at this point, walk the whole way.

He gets up, and, in a rustle of leaves, disappears through the trees.

 

 

******

He rounds a final the corner. He’s almost afraid to look up. And.

It’s not possible.

The words of the old woman he met when he was looking for the Cowley CID spring into his mind.

_It’s so difficult to keep up with all of the changes, isn’t it?_

Before him, the old prison has been half-raised to the ground. All that remains are two broken walls and a pile of rubble surrounded by construction vehicles and barricades. Could anyone possibly have survived? Could anyone be alive under all of those jagged chunks of brick and cement?

 

I’m sorry, Endeavour thinks. I’m so sorry.

He takes a deep breath and climbs over the barricade.

************

Sgt. Strange and Inspector Thursday are just pulling up into the Thursdays’ drive when a call comes in from WPC Trewlove.

“Sir?” she says. “We have a report from George Sanderson, foreman over at the demolition site of Kensington Gaol, complaining of a trespasser. He’s trying to secure the site for the night, and he can’t get the man to leave.”

Christ, Thursday thinks. He is on shift tonight, but can’t someone from uniform be sent out to deal with a mere trespasser? He hasn’t even gotten through the door.

“Can’t someone from uniform handle that?” Thursday asks.

“I thought you might want to go, sir. It seems the man is claiming to be a constable from something called ‘the International Division.’ Flashed a card at the foreman written in French. He says he’s looking for something and he’ll leave once he’s found it.”

Kensington Gaol? A card in French?

Shit.

“Description?” Thursday snaps.

“Sounds a bit like the man Constable Tyler described, who came by and took the bag from the Finch case out of evidence. About 5’10”, blonde-auburn, curly hair, white Oxford shirt, blue . . .

Shit. Shit.

“On our way, Constable.”

Thursday turns to Strange, who is getting ready to put the car in reverse, to back out of the drive. “One second, Sergeant,” he says. “Since we’ve come all this way, we may as well bring Bixby along. We might need him to talk some sense into him. Jesus. What the hell is he doing there?”

*****

Endeavour picks up one chuck of concrete after another. And there’s nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

His fingers feel like they are wet, even though the debris he’s handling is ragged and dry. He looks down to find his fingertips are bleeding. He feels slightly nauseated at the sight, but he doesn’t have time to think about that now.  He wipes his hands off on his shirt, leaving streaks across the white fabric, and keeps digging through the rubble.

“I’m sorry,” he chants “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He lets one chunk fall and a cloud of dust surges into the air. He puts his face in the crook of his elbow and coughs.

Where could he have gone?

At least that red-faced man finally decided to leave him alone.

No. Here comes someone else. Dear God, now what do they want with him?

Oh, It’s Jim Strange. That’s a relief. Surely, he won’t let him be arrested by the red-faced man.

 

“Matey?” Strange asks uncertainly.

“I don’t want them to arrest me,” Endeavour says, his voice shaking. “I’m not bothering them, I told them. I’m just looking for something. Or maybe two things.”

“Well, maybe I can help you?” he asks.

“All right,” Endeavour says.  

“How big are they? I don’t know what I’m looking for. I mean,” he smiles uncertainly, “are they bigger than a breadbox?”

“Uh. Yes,” Endeavour says. “They are about the size of me. Exactly the size of me.”

“All right. That’s easier than finding a shilling, at least,” Strange says.

Endeavour leans against another large piece and pushes it up. There’s nothing. He jumps back and lets it fall. It lands a bit more heavily than he would have thought, and he takes a few leaping steps back out of the way.

“Maybe we should head this way,” Strange says.  “It’s a bit dangerous here, matey. Don’t you see the walls there? They aren’t stable.”

“I know. It could all crush someone. I know,” Endeavour moans. Does the man not realize he knows that?

He rolls up another piece of concrete, looks beneath it, and lets it fall. It makes a satisfying thud, like a crash of cymbals at the end of a song. _Bam. Crash._

Well, good, Pagan thinks. I’m glad they’ve raised this place to the ground. What’s even better about it, is that all those who worked here must have been scattered to the winds, just as the officers from Cowley had been when it was closed. Their hateful little cabal, broken up— means they will be mixed up with others now, those who might do their jobs fairly, who don’t just stand around and laugh when . . .

“Matey?” an uncertain voice says. “Morse?”

Morse, my arse. Pagan thinks, throwing another rock out of his way. Who bloody well needs this-can’t-be-happening Morse? Pagan picks up another rock in his way and throws it away, as far as he can. It smashes against other chunks of concrete and brick, blowing up a satisfying cascade of dust and rock. He hopes Morse is under all of this shit. He picks up another rock and another and another, throwing them all out of his way. _Crash Crash Crash_. Damn, it feels good. He’ll break this place into dust and never think about again. It will be gone gone go . . .

And then a hand grabs his arm and someone is wheeling him about, and, by God, if they haven’t learned by now not to fuck with him anymore, they’ll be . . .

But when he looks up, it’s Jim Strange.

“Matey?” he says.

Endeavour blinks. “Oh,” Endeavour says. “Sorry.”

Strange gives him a look that Endeavour can’t decipher. “Let’s go over there, then, all right?” he says, waving his hand to indicate another section of the site. “Away from this one wall.  Might be as good a place to look as any, eh?”  

Endeavour looks over to where Strange has gestured. He certainly isn’t having any luck over here.

Or . . . . is he?

“All right,” he says.  

 

He follows Strange to the edge of the site. Behind the barricades, standing by the Jag, are Thursday and Bixby.  

Bixby is staring at him as though horror-struck. Why? What had he done? Endeavour doesn’t understand.

Then he looks down at himself, trying to see himself through Bixby’s eyes.

He’s a rumpled mess: his shirt has become untucked, and it’s covered with streaks of blood and dust from where he had wiped his hands across the white fabric. He reaches up to smooth his hair, and finds that it, too, is curling wildly in the humidity, and covered in dust.  The sunglasses perched there feel as if they are hopelessly tangled.

He must look like a complete madman.

And maybe he is.

He looks down and blinks rapidly, then, slowly, looks up to meet their assessing gaze.

Bixby seems to be almost frozen to the spot, brow furrowed in disbelief. “What the hell are you looking for?” he asks, his dark eyes, for once, opaque, unreadable.

Endeavour flinches.

And he finally comes to understand that Bixby was giving up on him.

 

_And Morse came to understand, finally, that he was tainted in some essential way. That he simply wasn’t meant for happiness. He learned how to be alone, because he had always been alone, after all._

“Never mind,” Morse says.  “I found it.”

 

******

They are silent on the way home, Strange driving, Thursday in the passenger seat, Morse and Bixby in the back.  Morse is almost afraid to look at Bixby. And he feels as if Bixby is afraid to look at him. It feels as if there is some strange barrier of energy between them; as if they are magnets that once drew irresistibly together—through the trees or through crowded parties—but that now, their polarities had flipped, creating an invisible force of repulsion between them.

They pull up to the house, and Strange drops Morse, Bixby and Thursday off in the drive. Morse feels almost sick when he sees it: that threshold on which he had stood that morning, putting on those ridiculous sunglasses, setting off to find all the answers in one day, setting off to prove to the world that he wasn’t the dewy-eyed defective they took him for.

When of course, that’s exactly what he was.  

 

He had no idea now, what he had been thinking, stumbling around Oxford. And had he actually gone out to that wretched little lake house? To DeBryn’s? Running around, looking for help from all corners?

Didn’t Endeavour know that Morse worked alone?

Mrs. Thursday greets them, rushing down the hall, with a radiant smile brightening her face. She opens her mouth as if to speak, as if she has some news she can’t wait to share, when, suddenly, Thursday rounds on him, in one frightening, aggressive movement, his face taut with anger.  

“I see you got your bag out of the nick.”

Endeavour stops short. His hand flies defensively to the strap of his satchel. “Yes.”

“What’s this card, then? What’s this card you’ve been flashing around at people? Do you know what trouble you got Constable Tyler in?” Thursday shouts. “Do you know you can be arrested for impersonating an officer? For counterfeiting a warrant card?”

Morse cuts him a haughty look. “I haven’t counterfeited anything. I can’t help it if people see what they expect to see.”

“Let’s see it then!” Thursday roars.

Morse scowls. He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his wallet, silently removes a card from it and hands it to Thursday.

Thursday takes it in hand and squints to read the small writing. “Biblotheque Saint-Brieuc. . . Is this . . . Is this your goddamn _library card?_ ”

Bixby bursts out laughing, seemingly impressed at the audacity of the whole affair. This, at least, is something Bixby can understand: he wanted the thing and he got it. Maybe he’s scored a bit of a comeback in his eyes.

Not that Morse gives a damn about that. Bixby finds a cause for laughter in just about everything.

_If you live in the shadows long enough you forget the light._

_And Bixby made light of everything and made light._

But if you live in the light long enough, you forget the shadows.

Morse knows it’s the shadows that are real.  

 

“So,” Thursday rounds on Bixby, “you think is funny, eh? Is it you encouraging him in this?”

In a flash, Bixby’s dark eyes shift—there’s a hardness there, a grimness Endeavour hasn’t seen before.

Then Thursday is flying back at him and he stumbles back a few more steps, his heart racing and rattling in his chest. For he has seen that look before, countless times, but he’s never been on the receiving end of it. “What the hell do you think you are doing, stealing evidence?” Thursday shouts. “What the hell are you playing at, huh?”

Endeavour starts to step back, steels himself for the attack he feels might well be coming.

Thursday takes two wide steps forward and makes a grab for the strap of Endeavour’s bag, but Endeavour stumbles back further, tightening his grip on the strap.

At that moment, Bixby strides forward, his usually laughing face set, and raises up a hand. “Hey,” he hears him shout.

“Fred,” Mrs. Thursday says coaxingly, reaching to take his arm.

“I’m not playing at anything,” Endeavour says. “I just took back what’s mine. It’s not needed. It has nothing to do with the case.”

“And how do you know that? It had your poems in it, that were stolen, didn’t it? And now there’s a man dead. How do we know it wasn’t a falling out of thieves?” Thursday says.

Endeavour feels the blood drain from his face at that; he’s trembling from head to foot.

“No one _killed_ anyone over my poems,” he says.

“How do you know that?” Thursday snaps.

“Why would they? For what purpose?” and now his voice is spiraling up and up, until it isn’t his anymore. “In two months' time, anyone could buy them for two pounds six at any bookshop!  They have no _right_ to keep my bag in evidence! Don’t you think they have enough of me in evidence, as it is?”

“How do you mean?” Thursday shouts.

How does he mean? _How does he mean?_ Can he be serious?

And then he’s laughing wildly. And then he’s Pagan and he’s completely falling over the precipice. “ _What do I mean?_ They have papers about me locked up for fifty bloody years! That’s what I mean! Until 2017! _2017!_ Can you imagine such a year? And I’ll be dead. I’ll be long long long dead and I’ll never know. I’ll never know a thing! I’ll never know what that was about! By the time they tell the truth, it’ll be too late for me. Because I’ll be dead dead dead!”

Pagan turns to Bixby, and his voice is shaking wildly--it sounds as if it’s coming from far away, through a long tunnel. “Maybe you can go to the courthouse when they release everything. You can come and tell it to my grave. This was what it was all about. Just in case you were remotely curious!”

Oh, to hell with all of it.

He makes a break for the front door, but Bixby jumps in the way. So he turns and runs blindly up the stairs, and there’s an explosion of shouting and, he’s Endeavour, and Gwen and his father are shouting and Joycie is crying so he turns on the landing and yells, “Stop it! Stop it!” and then he runs into a familiar room and slams the door.

He slides down against the back of it and sits in the darkness. Why, why, why did they have to come here? Why couldn’t they have stayed far, far away from this terrible place?

And he takes a deep shuddering breath and none of this has anything to do with him because he’s Josephine.

And he’s Josephine and she’s the opposite of him in every way.

And he’s Josephine and . . . she’s just like Bixby, isn’t she?

When Joss and Josephine walk into the room, no one looks at them askance, no one looks at them and says “I don’t get it.”

Joss and Josephine are a perfect match, they are like freight trains: they barrel through life and everything gets out of their way.

And he’s Endeavour and he’s and tired and his head is splitting and he’s Josephine and he walks over to the bed and lies down and closes her eyes and falls right to sleep.

 

*********

Bixby slowly climbs the stairs.

What a disaster. He never would have accepted the Thursday’s invitation if he had known the extent of the tension in the house. When Endeavour had gone missing last spring, it had been distressing enough, but at least he, Bixby, had permission to set everything aside, to do what he could to get him back.

The Thursdays, it seemed, were expected to weather the disappearance of their only daughter as if it was nothing, to carry on as if that was just something that happened every day, something you just had to accept and live with.

All this while, he and Endeavour had been perhaps unwittingly adding fuel to the fire. It was bound to end in combustion.

But, now, who knew? It was possible that _some_ good has seemed to come out of this all, at any rate.

Endeavour, he thinks, would feel better knowing that.

At the landing, Bixby feels a sense of foreboding. It’s awfully quiet, their room. He had thought to have given Endeavour some time to calm himself, but now he worries he may have given him too much time. Is he even there? Has he slipped out the window?

He cracks the door. Endeavour is there, stretched out on the bed, still in his blood-streaked and dusty shirt, mouth slightly parted, sound asleep. He looks completely done in.

Is that normal, considering that he was just yelling bloody murder fifteen minutes before?

 

Bixby sits on the edge of the bed, and cards his hands through the soft dusty curls, turned more gold than red and tawny from the summer. He knows it’s all right to do so: Endeavour is facing him and can see that it’s him easily enough. Funny, that he knows how and when to run his fingers through those waves without having the slightest idea as to what might be churning beneath them.

“Endeavour?” he asks.

“Endeavour?”

Two blue eyes slide open, bright and somehow watery-looking in his red, sunburnt face.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he says, blankly. “No. I don’t know.”

Well, that’s helpful. What had he been doing all day?

Bixby stills his hand for a moment and considers him. He certainly seems the worse for wear.

As soon as he had heard that Finch was dead, that he might have been murdered, Bixby should have pulled the plug on this: they should have gone back to France.

All he wanted was for Endeavour to come back, calmly and collectedly, and report his things stolen, just as anyone else would do. To not let some pop group waltz right into their house and then walk all over him. There was no reason he should live in fear. He should simply face the past undaunted, and get on with things. Was that too much to ask?

Why did everything have to run to such extremes with him? Surely, there had to be some reaction between hiding in your room whenever strangers approached your door and throwing yourself headlong into a murder investigation . . .  

For Bixby feels quite sure that’s just what he’s been up to.

“Bix?” Endeavour says, at last.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. I don’t want you to go to that awful courthouse. I don’t know why I said that. I suppose, for a moment, I thought if you knew some day, then part of me would know, too. But I don’t want you to go near any of that. It’s all so vile. Besides, I’ve decided: I don’t care about any of that anymore. I’m finished with it.”

Bixby isn’t quite sure what to say. It wasn’t the idea of one day looking into a reopened case that troubled him so much as Endeavour’s obvious assumption that he would outlive him. Endeavour was nearly three and a half years younger than he was—why shouldn’t he still be alive in 2017 if he thinks Bixby might be?

He’s about to ask him this, when Endeavour asks, “Are you still angry?”

“I wasn’t angry,” Bixby says.

“You looked angry. And everyone was shouting,” Endeavour protests.

Bixby regards him critically. He has a drawn look to him, a hollowness to the eyes that he recognizes.

“Did you eat anything at all today?” Bixby asks.

Endeavour pauses to consider for a moment. “No.”

Bixby huffs a rueful laugh. That most likely didn’t help matters any.  “Why didn’t you get yourself some lunch?” he asks.

“I didn’t have any money,” Endeavour says.

Bixby feels a muscle in his jaw twitch. “But that’s absurd, Endeavour. Obviously, we can afford for you to eat lunch, for God’s sake. Why didn’t you take that twenty this morning, like I told you? “

“I didn’t like to.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t like to feel like I was some whore.”  

Bixby sits stunned, trying to remember the conversation from that morning. Oh.

“Jesus,” Bixby says. “I was only joking. Why do you have to take everything so much to heart?”  

Endeavour doesn’t answer. He’s staring blankly at the wall; It’s clear he’s already thinking about something else.

“Bix?”

“Yes,” Bixby says again.  

He frowns for a moment, as if he’s formulating his next question carefully. But then, he simply says, “Why did we come here?”

“So you could get your poems back, of course. To stop those blighters from stealing what’s yours, that’s why.”

“But I already told you I had changed my mind about that. I wanted simply to let them have them.”

Bixby sighs. “That’s not on. That’s not how it works.”

“Why not?”

 

Well that’s obvious, isn’t it? Why is he being so deliberately difficult?

 

“Because it just isn’t. You don’t let people walk all over you, Endeavour. If someone tries to take what’s yours, you don’t stand for it. Believe me. I know these sorts of people. You let them get away with that, and they’ll push it as far as they can. If you let them take those things without protest, do you know what they’d do?”

“What?” Endeavour asks quietly. 

“They’d stick your name right on the back of their goddamn album cover, trying to "reach a broader audience." Lyrics by Endeavour Morse. You want that?”

“No,” Endeavour admits.

 

Well, that’s something.

 

“But couldn’t I have just said it wasn’t me who wrote them? Have denied the whole thing?” he asks.

Bixby sighs again. “I don’t think that would work. Your things are just too . . .” he waves his hand a bit in lieu of lighting on any one word.

Endeavour narrows his eyes suspiciously, “Too _what?_ ” he asks.

 _Weird_ was the first word that popped into his mind, honestly, but, somehow Bixby doesn’t think Endeavour would appreciate such a designation.

Bixby flashes a smile. “Let’s just say you have your own style. You and I are just alike that way.”

 

That was a pretty smooth comeback if Bixby thinks so himself, but Endeavour doesn’t seem mollified by this; it’s as if he’s sensed Bixby’s real answer in the offing.

Then his expression changes, and he tilts his head. “Are you sure . . . ?”

“Sure of what?”

“Are you sure this is me we’ve been talking about. Not you?”

“How could we be talking about me?” Bixby asks with a laugh. “I’ve never written a poem in my life.”

“No,” Endeavour says. “I mean—those other things you were talking about. About not letting people take what’s yours. You seem awfully invested in this. Why? Why does it matter?”

“It just does,” Bixby says, firmly.

 

Doesn’t it to everyone? Isn’t that just some universal law of nature? If he can’t understand that, then . . .

 

“So, if I got them, back, you’re saying we could go home?” Endeavour asks. 

“I don't see why not. I wrapped up that merger in London this afternoon. I've no other business here, really." 

“All right," Endeavour says. "Because I got them back." 

Bixby sits up, surprised. He kept that quiet. “How? Where were they?"

“Nick Wilding gave them to me. I went to Maplewick Hall.”

“You mean you went over to their place, then? The way they did to ours? And demanded them back? They did have them, then?”

“Yes, they had them,” Endeavour says.

“There you are, then,” Bixby says. “Turnabout is fair play.”

“I suppose,” Endeavour says.

 

He supposes? Hell yes, it is.

But maybe there is no point getting Endeavour to understand this. He seems to be the one person on earth without a competitive bone in his body. Lucky for him, we aren’t living in the Stone Age.

“So can we go back to France? Can we go tomorrow?” Endeavour asks. 

“All right. We can call the airline office in the morning, see what flights are available,” Bixby says. 

Endeavour goes limp at this. It’s that same strange look of relief— at once stunned and frantic—that he had when he stumbled into the house on his birthday last year.

What’s this? He won, for God’s sakes. Why does he have to look so bloody defeated? 

Well, there's no point discussing this with Endeavour. 

“Won’t you come downstairs and have some dinner?” Bixby asks. “Mrs. Thursday is so happy. Joan called. You don’t want to ruin her evening for her, do you, sitting up here?”

Endeavour sits up abruptly.

“She did?”

“Yes, evidently she said she ran into you at work. You must have gotten her thinking, I suppose.”

At this, his whole expression changes, and a brightness floods back into his face. He’s so utterly transparent sometimes, it’s painful even to look at him. So—he’s thinking—one of his schemes worked out after all.

After all, from the look on his face, Bixby doubts that he accidentally “ran into” Joan.

 

“So won’t you come down?”

“Yes, but . . . I think I should shower first. I smell sort of terrible. Is there time, do you think?”  

Bixby always thought that Endeavour smelled like fall leaves, but he was a bit of a mess—his hair damp and curling with sweat and his shirt covered in dust and streaks of blood.

And that reminds him . . . Bixby reaches to take one of Endeavour's hands to see what he’s done to his fingers, but Endeavour snatches it away, pulls it toward him, and curls it lightly into a fist.

Well, he's probably embarrassed, that's all. If he doesn't want to say anything about it, neither will Bixby. It's best just to forget it ever happened. What is there, after all, to say?

“I should think so,” Bixby says. “Just be quick, eh?”

“All right,” Endeavour says.

“And see if there’s anything to put on that,” he says, nodding to his hand.

“All right,” Endeavour says.

Bixby remains at his place on the edge of the bed while Endeavour gathers some clean clothes and then goes out the door.

 

He sits for a moment in the darkening room.

He should never have left him to roam about all day on his own.

Although, if you don’t think your lover is competent enough to spend a day in a city he’s lived in for years, is he competent enough to be your lover? It’s a disquieting thought.

Bixby puts his head in his hands.

Oh, God.

What the hell has he been doing?

But, then, Endeavour is happy enough at home. Bixby remembers with a tinge of guilt Endeavour whirling about with him under the stars, his breath warm against his ear. _On a night like this, anything is possible._

He closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose, and he can hear Endeavour in the drawing room, laughing at some pedantic joke with Guillaume and Esme.

Then Bixby is pouring himself a Scotch in the lamp-lit drawing room, and he turns, and Endeavour is laying on the carpet listening to records, a soft sleepy smile playing on his lips.

 Endeavour is walking up to join the choir, and he looks back, meets Bixby’s eyes, and smiles.

They are out in the woods, walking as the stars begin to brighten against the black, and Endeavour flashes him a devilish grin and does a dramatic double take, before pulling him into a kiss. 

 

He’s happy enough at home, that much is true. But how can he be happy with that, really? With traipsing about a town that’s barely a dot on the map, singing in a third-rate provincial choir, walking through the woods and collecting those ludicrous fir cones?

He goes once every two months or so to Paris. _Paris!_ The city of lights. Isn’t that the proper place for a poet?

Bixby knows he has friends at the publishing house. Stop and have a coffee with them, he says. Why don’t you go to a café, chat with your literary friends?

And it’s not only because he thinks it would be good for him that he encourages this:  sometimes Bixby has the impression that that crowd thinks he’s some ogre, as if he has Endeavour roped in on a tether.

But, no, like clockwork, he drives his two hours there, meets with Turner for an hour and comes right back, coming through the door white-faced and shaky and heading straight for the decanter of Scotch.

 

Once Endeavour stood, munching on a pastry and looking over a paper. “What do you think of this?” he said. “Madame Canet says this third stanza is pulling the whole thing down.”

“Oh?” Bixby asked. He had never heard of a Madame Canet working for Turner. Did he, in fact, actually stop the last time he was there, and socialize a bit? “Who is Madame Canet?” he asked.

He looked up at him incredulously. “You know Madame Canet.”

“No,” Bixby said. “I don’t think I do.”

Endeavour looked at him as if he were quite barmy. “She’s the woman who runs the bakery.”

Bixby could only shake his head. If he wanted to discuss his poems with someone, he would be welcome in the most glittering circles of any Parisian salon. But, where is he? Sitting at one of the invariably off-balance tables in a tiny bakery in Saint Brieuc. A town that Bixby had never even bothered to go to before Endeavour moved in, despite the fact he lived just outside its borders. Before Endeavour, he had always jumped right on the A31 and headed straight to his destination.

 

He was exasperated at the time, but now he smiles at the memory.

 

The sound of the water running brings him back to himself.

Well, Endeavour will simply have to learn that it just won’t do, that’s all. Endeavour is beautiful, Endeavour is brilliant.  If someone who was once as ordinary as Joss had been meant for bigger and better things, then there is no possible universe in which someone like Endeavour could ever be happy in such a mediocre, dull little world.

But how can he make him see that? What does Bixby have to do to show him that he needn’t fear venturing outside a five-mile radius from home? That he is destined for a far, far more extraordinary life?

But wait . . . there’s something familiar there . . .

_“Are you sure this is me we’ve been talking about. Not you?”_

Suddenly, Bixby begins to wonder: perhaps the disconnect between them has nothing to do with Endeavour’s past and everything to do with his own.

No.

That can’t be it.

But then, why is it, that, as he’s going down the stairs, one last memory of Endeavour in Lorraine pops into his mind? It’s snowing, and the sky is white and the ground is white, and Endeavour turns, and his face is the only spark of color on the landscape— a blush of wind-burnt pink across his cheeks and two blue eyes as peaceful and as still as winter lakes.

Then he smiles.

“You sound like a twentieth-century Dumb Ox of Sicily,” he says.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

 

 

 

Endeavour stands under the water of the shower spray, letting the day fall away from him.

He just can’t imagine what he had been thinking. What on earth did he hope to gain, going back to the lake house, going back to . . .  that place?

Although, it was true, that for a sliver of a moment . . .

 

And he was nearing the lake house, and a group of students walked laughing through the woods, and, in that moment, he was Pagan—standing in that very spot, listening for the brusque crush of leaves, for the footsteps of someone who walked confidently through the trees, as if the place were a boardroom and not a dark and starlit wood.

And then he stood on the side of the road, and Bixby was looking at him as though horrified, and he was Morse: hemmed in behind that wall of isolation and reserve that he never could quite surmount.

 

There was something about being in Oxford again.  A glance at the steepled skies, and he was Pagan going to tutorial, he was Morse out on an inquiry.

Earlier that day, he had sat, uncertain, as a young man extolled upon the possibilities of tearing away the veil. Just as Pagan had once done.

And he then was walking across the fields, considering the details of the case. I’ll go into the nick, he thought, and look through what they have in evidence, put the pieces together until they fit.

Just as Morse had once done.

 

It wasn’t as difficult as he would have imagined, being on a case again. It was so easy to fall into that dogged line of thought that . . . .

No.

 

Endeavour realizes he’s been standing under the spray for an inordinate amount of time, but he’s almost afraid to turn the water off. It could be, once he leaves this hushed world of cascading water—once he dries off, dresses and steps out into the Thursday’s hall—he’ll discover that he is Morse, after all: that all of these past years with Bixby have merely been a delirium, a fever dream.

 

The thought had first struck Pagan at one of Bixby’s parties, when Tony had asked— rather intrusively—what his plans, “if any,” were.

“I thought I might go to France,” Pagan said.

Tony laughed at this. “Where on earth are you going to get the money to go to France? What will you do there? Kay and I certainly won’t give it to you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not unless you have some sort of plan besides holing up in some hovel there and drinking absinthe instead of Scotch.”

Pagan had looked at him haughtily. When had he ever asked them for any money? He had been living in the lake house rent-free, it was true, but that cost Tony’s parents nothing. The place hadn’t been used in years.

“I don’t recall asking you for any money,” Pagan said.

“And how would you ever manage, on your own?” Tony continued. Then Tony frowned, as if a new thought had occurred to him. “You aren’t thinking of going off with that Bixby fellow, are you?”

Pagan said nothing.

“Oh.  My.  God,” Tony said quietly, punctuating each syllable in an unnecessarily melodramatic way.

Pagan scowled.

“You do know that ‘Joss Bixby’ doesn’t exist, don’t you? That there is no such person?” Tony said.

Pagan felt as though his heart had stopped, seized up frozen in his chest. “What do you mean, he doesn’t _exist?_ ”

“I mean, he’s a complete fraud. My family has known everyone in the circles he purports to fly in for absolutely generations. No one I’ve asked has heard anything of a “Joss Bixby” or any “Bixby,” at all, for that matter. I mean, where does the man come from? He must have some family, somewhere.”

“Oh,” Pagan said. “Is that all.”

“Is that all?” Tony said incredulously. “You were a police officer—you tell me: why would someone feel the need to create an entirely false identity? Unless he’s hiding something?”

Pagan wasn’t so sure. There could be plenty of reasons for wanting to leave your past behind, for wanting to starting afresh. No, that’s not what was troubling him.

“But he does, in fact, exist, doesn’t he?” Pagan asked. “I mean, you do _see_ him, don’t you?”

Tony looked at him, almost fearfully. “Well, of course, I _see_ him Pagan. What the devil do you mean?”

Pagan didn’t answer.

“Pagan?”

“Nothing,” Pagan said.

It was all in the way Tony had said it— “You know he doesn’t exist”—that had stirred his heart with fear.

Because, sometimes, when he was wildly, insensibly drunk, he got the idea that perhaps it had already happened. That he had gone mad. That he had fallen off the precipice. That Kay and Tony had put him away someplace. That the life he thought he was living had become from that point on a mere delusion: in reality, he was facing a white padded wall someplace.

His father had always complained that he was just like his mother. And what did he remember most about his mother? Her unswerving faith in God, her belief in some higher power that would, in the end, set the world to rights.  

Morse never had much use for those sorts of fairy tales—the lies people told themselves to make an unbearable world bearable.

But what if he had, in fact, after all, done the same thing? Invented some cosmic figure who would swoop down and save him? Created a being smooth and unflappable, who would spring from nowhere like an Olympian god, flipping a gold coin without fear he’d ever pay it to the boatman? Someone who drank wine but never seemed drunk, who spoke measuredly, and never shouted, who merely stood and shrugged while Bruce shouted, red-faced with impotent rage, before him? Even after he took Bruce’s sucker punch, Bixby reacted not with pain or fear, but with mild disappointment, as if he were appalled by such a display of bad manners.

What if no one believed in Bixby because he, Pagan, had made him up? Created a lovely myth to soothe himself with, when in reality he was off in a rubber room somewhere, blank-eyed and facing the corner?

But then, he’d sober up a bit, and realize that such thoughts were ridiculous.

******

But nevertheless, there was something true about what Tony had said and something false about Bixby. Bixby was smoke and mirrors. He wasn’t a liar, like the others, but he was, in fact, a lie.

It was an odd paradox to live with.

 

Sometimes, Endeavour wondered if it might be possible—just through observation and deduction—to discover something about the real Joss Bixby. Endeavour had, at one point long ago,  been a detective, hadn’t he? And if he could learn to read the truth about who Bixby was, he could prove to himself that he wasn’t wrong in trusting him—that following the man into another country wasn’t just another misstep in a long series of self-destructive maneuvers, whatever it might look like to Tony or anyone else.

With little to go on, Endeavour merely took what he saw, and then worked backwards from that.

During the first snowfall in Lorraine, for example, they had just been coming home through the woods, when Bixby stopped and looked up into the sky. He stood for a moment, looking up amidst the drifting flakes that fell like bright crystals on his dark hair, and then, he threw out his arms and whooped with childlike joy.

Endeavour considered him. To Endeavour, snow could be lovely, yes, but it was—well—snow. Something you had to shovel so your father could get his cab out of the drive.

That Bixby seemed to view snow as miraculous, not commonplace, led Endeavour to believe he had grown up someplace warmer, perhaps, where it was a rarity.

Conversely, Bixby had seemed horrified when Endeavour had come home rumpled and dirty after helping Monsieur Boinot with his pear trees. He played it off as if he were far too poised and polished to ever dirty his hands thus, but Endeavour knew better. Truly posh people often paid good money for these sorts of “experiences.” How often had Susan and the others packed picnics and trundled them off into the country?

 It was a stretch—but, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. That Bixby viewed picking pears as a drudgery to be avoided all costs, rather than a fun little lark, led Endeavour to think that perhaps such tasks had once been a daily part of his life, a life that, for whatever reason, he wanted to leave behind.

 

All the conjecture in the world, however, was no substitute for certainty. And it did nothing much to answer the larger questions.

Endeavour couldn’t help but wonder: did Bixby have any family, anywhere? Endeavour came to think that he didn’t, but he came to this conclusion through rather a roundabout road.

Bixby—despite his fabricated exterior— possessed a certain wholeness, a cohesiveness, that Endeavour had seen in others, but which he knew that he, Endeavour, lacked.

As they began to build their lives together, to form their own small family of two, all of the things that seemed new and confusing and wondrous and difficult to Endeavour, Bixby accepted with a grace that suggested he had once taken such bonds of tenderness and security for granted, as if he had once held them as his due.

This led Endeavour to believe that he had belonged, at some point, to a loving family. But also, that they must have all passed away, or else, surely, he would have been in touch with them by now.

But while he might guess that Bixby’s parents and siblings were dead, this didn’t tell him anything about them. What were they like? Pagan wanted to ask. What were their names?

Would they have minded me, so very much, do you think?

 

Or, maybe, after all, Bixby had just sprung from Zeus’ skull. Who could say?

 

There were so many things that Endeavour didn’t know. But there was one thing he did know: that the world was an impossible and treacherous and lonely place. And to weather it, everyone needed someone who would love them and love them unconditionally.

So what if Bixby might possibly have made up a new identity, for reasons known only to himself?

Bixby had bought him an entirely new life. Was a love without contingencies too much to ask for in return?

And, after all, it wasn’t as if Pagan had had anything else to give.

 

Endeavour turns off the water, steps out of the shower, and grabs a towel from off the ledge of the sink.

The mirror over the sink is clouded with steam, but, as he dries himself off, it slowly clears, and he catches his reflection. He stops and considers. He looks . . . different somehow. Or is it just his imagination?

He tilts his head and looks again. Then he shrugs. Perhaps it’s just a trick of the condensation and the flickering light.

 

He gets dressed and then heads back down the hall to their room. He might as well put on a tie, too. Do whatever he can to look robustly sane after where he’d been caught at earlier. He can’t even bear to think about it. God knows how he’ll face them all downstairs.  

He looks down at the bed, to the place where he had been lying twenty minutes or so ago. And a new thought occurs to him.

 _“I smell sort of terrible?”_ Is that really what he had just said to Bixby?

Who on earth says that out loud?

And then he remembers something else. . . and suddenly, his knees buckle and he half-collapses onto the edge of the bed.

Those things that he said to DeBryn. . . Had he actually said all of that, too? 

He buries his face in his hands. If he ever saw the man again, he would combust out of sheer embarrassment.

Dear God, maybe there is something wrong with him. There is. Maybe he should just say it.

But, no. The room smells of Bixby’s aftershave, and there, by the dresser are his expensive shoes, all lined up neatly. Of course, Bixby is real. Of course, he hasn’t been dreaming these past few years.

What the hell did Tony ever know about anything?

 

*******

Thursday sits at the table, a steaming cup of tea before him. He felt like a complete bastard, and that was a fact. He hadn’t anticipated any of that at all.

It had set Thursday off no end that Morse had dropped his name to bully that sod Tyler into giving him back his satchel.  If Morse was going to set off on this course, fine, so be it, but Thursday didn’t need to be drug into that mess, for the love of Christ.

Doesn’t the lad realize how close he was to being sent off into early retirement? How badly he needs this job?

Well, of course he doesn’t.

And besides, he owes his brother more loyalty than that. Charlie had said he would pay him back before Christmas. If a man can’t trust his own brother, then who can he trust?

Still, Thursday can’t get over the row he’d just had with Morse. That stroppy way he handed him his library card—that was his bagman, his pain-in-the-arse DC through and through. In the past, when he’d been at odds with Morse, Morse had matched him angry word for angry word.

 

_Did he confess? Did he? Did he confess?_

_I’m a good detective!_

 

But this night was just like that godawful day at the lake house when he had shown him Corcoran’s letter. Morse had completely fallen to pieces, seemed wildly out of his tree, even.

Now, he remembers that odd day long ago, when he had brought Morse his record player. How he began to feel that something was off. Morse was Morse, a record he knew well, but it seemed somehow as if the record had been set to the wrong speed.

Thursday had put it all down to the Corcoran case. Morse certainly had had a rocky few months, that was certain. That night at Blenheim Vale, prison, and then, right on the heels of it all, a murder and that twisted, sordid business igniting like a wildfire amidst the very friends to whom he had fled. No wonder the lad could scarcely catch his breath.

But Morse would all right.

And that’s what he told himself.

But then, how to explain that day at the Louvre?

 

Thursday wasn’t sure he had ever heard Morse talk so much at once, outside of explaining one of his bizarre theories during a case. He was he was in his element, make no mistake. He ought to be a curator. Win was getting a big charge out of it all, Thursday could tell. It was like having their own private tour.

Then, suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, the lad froze up, went still.

 “Well?” Bixby had prompted. “Then what happened?”

Morse glanced over at Bixby and then looked reassured. He fell right back into his story about some Medici and some Pope Leo the something.  

But, then, a few minutes later, it happened again. Thursday couldn’t tell what Morse was on about. He took a step back and watched, looking for the patterns.

Well, God damn it.

It was the guards.

Morse would be gushing over some Rococo or Renaissance this, that or the other, and, then, as soon as one of the uniformed guards wandered into his sightline, he would completely clam up, go still.

“Well, what about it, old man?” Bix would prompt. Then, Morse would look over and finish whatever the hell he’d been saying.  

Was some part of him churning over all that business, still? After all this time?

 

Well of course, he was. This was Morse. What else did the man do but churn?

 

It was subtle, the way Morse moved to stay within a certain radius of Bixby. And then it struck him: had he really seen him without the man around? Even when Morse had gone to accept that degree from Lonsdale, Bixby was there, up in the audience; it was he who Morse sought out in the crowd.

But then, look how Morse managed to get away from those art thieves on his own. Fat lot of good those French coppers did. Useless. It was Morse who made a break for it, Morse who incapacitated the bastards. One tied-up former English DC did what a whole nick full of French officers couldn’t manage. But, then, no surprise there. What could you expect from the French, after all?

 

Morse was all right.

 

Just then, Thursday hears someone coming down the stairs, and, in a moment, Bixby saunters into the dining room. Unbelievable. The man never has so much as a hair out of place.

Thursday himself feels like he’s been through the ringer. What had Morse been doing down there, at the demolition site? Did he tell Bix what the hell he had been looking for?

Bixby takes a seat opposite of him, and neither of them say a word.

Well, this is awkward, Thursday thinks.

Bix had always been so easy-going and affable; Thursday never would have imagined that he’d come so close to having what amounted to a barroom brawl with the man. But, now, just twenty minutes later, he looks just as smooth and unconcerned as ever.

Win comes through the door with a tray laden with a tea pot and three more cups. “Oh, hello, then,” she says, seeing that Bix has joined them. “How is . . .”

“Fine,” Bixby says, somewhat tersely, but he makes up for it with a slight twitch of his mouth, in what aims to be a conciliatory half-smile. “I told him about Joan.”

“Did you?” Win gushes, setting down the tray. She can hardly hide her happiness. She looks ten years younger than she had that morning. “I can’t tell you how glad I am she called. I’m that relieved.”

“Endeavour seemed pleased about it,” Bixby says. He reaches for the teapot and a cup and adds, “I don’t think he simply 'ran into' Joan, somehow.”

Win smiles. “Nor do I. He just asked me this morning if I’d like him to look for her. It seems a bit of a coincidence.”

“What’s this?” Thursday asks. What? Morse poking his nose in? When had he and Win had this little tête-a-tête?

“Endeavour asked me if I’d like for him to look for Joan. I told him no, that I was afraid she’d see it as a push, but he must have done it anyway,” Win explains.

“Sounds like Morse,” Thursday grumbles.

They both give him a look. So that’s how it is, then. Any criticism of Morse, no matter how remote or well-deserved, is off the table. Never mind that the man used his name to harass some hapless constable into turning over state’s evidence, never mind that they’d been summoned to haul him off from a demolition site for trespassing.

Thursday clears his throat and returns to his tea.

“I’ll just go and check the roast,” Win says. “I think everything’s nearly ready,” She rises from her chair and disappears through the swinging kitchen door.

 

They sit for a while longer in silence. Is Bixby still miffed with him, then? Thursday considers him. No, just preoccupied. Well, all right then.

 

Maybe it’s best if he goes to help Win, leave the man to his thoughts. He wishes she would come on back in. Or that Morse would come down. What the hell is he doing up there, so long—trying to drown himself?

After what feels like an age, Morse comes trundling in, looking oddly composed. He looks all right, actually.

Morse takes a seat beside Bixby. Thursday is ready to follow their lead on whatever they have to say for the evening’s events, to offer apologies for his role in escalating them. But, instead, they simply sit, looking straight ahead.

What’s this? Are we pretending it never happened, then?

If Win caught _him_ out making a scene like that, he wouldn’t hear the end of it that quickly.

Thursday would be the first to admit: Win’s need to talk about everything can wear him out no end. But later, he can always see she was right, that it was for the best, and—usually, at least—he tries to remember to tell her so.

Thursday is shaken from is thoughts by the sound of the opening door; it's Win, bringing in a roast with potatoes. 

 

“Oh, hello, then, dear,” she says to Morse.

“Bix said that you heard from Joan,” Morse says.

So that’s the tactic then, Thursday thinks. Get them talking about something else and forget all about it.

Well, one point to Morse, there. It works a treat. He and Bix are both saved from having to speak by Win, who’s near to bursting with talk in her happiness.

 

It isn’t until she’s speaking that Thursday realizes how quiet she had grown of late, how much he had missed her light, quick chatter in the evenings, what a solace her voice could be after listening to all of the bluster he hears down at the nick all day.

Win is absolutely beaming; she begins filling them in on Joan’s news.  Morse listens and nods, shoveling potatoes in his mouth and chewing doggedly, staring off into space.  Bixby looks at Morse and his face goes tight; for some reason, he looks as if he’s about to jump out of his skin. Who knows what’s going on with them?

 

Well, maybe that’s what you get when it’s two blokes together. Or at least when it’s one as unforthcoming as Morse and the other as imperturbable as Bixby.

Thursday can just imagine their conversation now. “What were you doing there?”  Bixby would say. “I’d rather not say,” Morse would reply. And Bixby: “Well, all right, then. Let's go have a drink.”

 As long as neither of them seem to be casting him any dark looks, Thursday supposes it's none of his never mind. But, still, maybe his question to Win wasn’t so daft after all.

 Maybe they ought to decide which one of them would wear the dress.

****

They’re just finishing up dinner when the phone rings. Thursday is on call, so he goes to answer it. “Might be work,” he says, tossing his napkin on the table and pushing back his chair.

He goes into the den to pick up the phone and hears silence fall in the dining room. Why don’t you lot come on in so you can hear better? he’s tempted to call.

 

“Thursday,” he says, picking up the receiver.

“Inspector Thursday?  It’s Constable Tyler.”

 Tyler. Poor bastard will be on nights for a month.

“Yes?” Thursday prompts.

“We’ve just had a call in from Maplewick Hall. There’s been a report of a missing person. Nick Wilding. There seems to be the chance that drugs might be involved, sir.”

“Maplewick Hall?” Thursday asks. “All right, then. Thank you, Constable.”

“Sir.”

 

Thursday hangs up the phone and heads back into the dining room. Well, of course, it’s drugs. Another young life struggling amidst the rocks. Thursday has seen more and more cases like this over the last three years.

 “That was Tyler,” Thursday says. “I’m off.”

“Did you say Maplewick Hall? When you were on the phone?” Morse asks, eyes round with interest.

Had he been so careless as to repeat that back to Tyler? Well, there’s no use in lying to Morse on top of everything else. He feels he’s spent enough time in the doghouse as it is.

“Yes,” Thursday says. “Nick Wilding has gone missing.”

“But, sir,” says Morse, “I know where he is. I . . . I just saw him this afternoon.”

Thursday hesitates.

“Sir. He was at a garden pavilion; it’s on an island in the middle of the lake. You have to row quite a way to get to it. In the dark, it will be difficult to find. It’s all glass and old copper.”

Sounds like a slog. A long, aimless row looking around blindly for something in the dark doesn’t pack a lot of appeal after the day he’s had, and—more to the point—if Wilding has overdosed on something, time might be of the essence.

“Well. Come on, then, Morse,” Thursday says. 

Morse jumps up from the table with a speed that suggests that he fears Thursday might change his mind.  

 

**********

Endeavour looks into the black water, and his rippling, pale reflection looks back.

Could he have imagined it, what he thought he saw in the Thursdays’ bathroom mirror?

Despite the darkness, it feels as if the world has burst into a sudden sharpness, a breathtaking clarity. It’s like looking through the binoculars Bixby gave him to watch the finches from the dining room: You twist the dial in the center and then, snap: everything comes into focus.

Has Thursday noticed? Is that why he’s allowed him to come along with him again?

Endeavour glances up at him, but Thursday isn’t looking at him at all. He’s scanning the bank with a torch, his face lined with concentration in the shadows.

Endeavour leans back against the oars and watches the bank. And then, he sees it, looming under the waning moon.

“Sir,” he says, nodding in the direction of the pavilion. He shoves off with the right oar and begins to turn the boat in a large arc.

 

Once they reach the island, they pull the boat up and disembark, the sound of their footfalls quelled by the tall grasses. There’s no light, no sign of life at all. The place feels empty and foreboding in the darkness.

Thursday hands him an extra torch.

“Thanks,” he says, and, though he’s whispered the word, it sounds loud, somehow, in the still night air.

Inside the pavilion, all is likewise dark and silent. Lit only by the moon, the pale curtains rustle like ghosts.

Endeavour scans the room for some clue as to where Nick might have gone. The candles are snuffed out. Before him, a table is littered with empty wine bottles. And there’s his own glass, the one he had just drunk from earlier in the day, though it feels as if it was a lifetime ago. There’s also a book. And a packet of photographs. On a whim, Endeavour picks them up. It’s difficult to see them in the watery moonlight, but they look to be photos of three people, naked and sleeping. They look to be . . . Pippa, Nick and . . . Barry Finch?  

Endeavour tucks them in his pocket.

There’s no sign of Nick Wilding anywhere.

“Anything?” Thursday asks.

“No,” Endeavour says.

Thursday walks outside, shining the torch back and forth across the dark grass and dark water as he goes. “What the hell is that?” he says.

Endeavour walks over to join him.

“Over there,” Thursday clarifies.

Endeavour sees nothing, but Thursday is already striding back down to the row boat, so Endeavour follows.

They row back across the black lake. The sloshing of the water against the oars sounds much louder now than it had earlier in the day, as if the water is protesting being woken from its sleep.

Then, an eerie, forlorn song comes drifting on the warm night air. Like the pipes of Pan.

“There he is,” Thursday says.

Endeavour looks up and sees Nick Wilding, standing in a rotunda of columns before a blazing fire, playing a long wooden flute. He’s like a god in his shrine, waiting for the mortals who are coming to him from across the shore.

Thursday and Endeavour make landing and pull the boat up into the grass.

Endeavour approaches, but Nick doesn’t seem to recognize him, even though they had just spoken earlier in the day. He just stares at him blankly, playing his flute.

Endeavour suddenly feels almost as if he might pass out, as if he’s looking into the face of his greatest fear. For, from one glance, it’s clear that Nick is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Endeavour looks helplessly to Thursday. But Thursday calmly takes one of Nick’s arms, as if he’s seen it all before, so he follows his lead and takes the other.

 “Come on, then,” Endeavour coaxes.

So, Endeavour thinks, Nick has found a way into another world. The question is: can he find his way back to this one?

*****

Nick is quiet enough until the others shine their torches into his drifting, empty eyes.

Then he begins screaming.

It’s like something out of one of Pagan’s nightmares, and he can feel it, blossoming in the center of his chest. He wants to run from all of them and all of it.

*****

Nick is sprawled on a nest of cushions, dressed only in shiny purple trousers and a garish belt. He twitches and jumps as if he’s in pain. Endeavour has to look away.

“I’m just going to shine a little light in your eyes,” the doctor kneeling beside him says. “It won’t hurt.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Ken is shouting. “He’s my brother!  Do something!”

“Look at me,” says Stix, grabbing Ken’s face in his hands and forcing him to look into his eyes. “He’s just high, man. He’s just high. He’s on a trip, and he’s going to come back down. All right?”

“Those aren’t mushrooms,” says Christopher, uncertainly, running his hand up through his hair, to push it out of his face.

“He wouldn’t do any chemicals,” Ken insists. “Which of you bastards dosed him?”

The doctor turns to them and admonishes, “The main thing he needs right now is a quiet, calm environment and someone to stay with him.”

“I’ll do it,” Pippa says.

“You’ve done enough,” Ken roars.

“Ken,” Stix says, trying to placate him.  

“He was fine when I left him and then, when I come back, he’s half out of his mind. So, no, you’ve done enough,” Ken says.

“I haven’t done anything,” Emma protests.

“The only people allowed near him are me, Chris and Lee. We’ll do it in shifts,” Ken says.

“Anything, Ken,” says Christopher.

“You got it, man,” adds Stix.

It’s hell. Endeavour keeps his face turned away. Nick may be thinking thoughts, trying to speak, but no one can hear him. He is alone and beyond alone.

“All right, Morse?” Thursday asks.

 “Yes,” Endeavour says.

“Well, nothing more we can do here,” Thursday says. “Best we were on our way.” He turns and walks a step or two, then looks back, waiting for Endeavour to follow.  

Endeavor turns to go, but, as he leaves, he takes one last look at Nick Wilding, and he realizes something.

Nick Wilding isn’t Pagan Morse.

Nick Wilding is Henry Winter.  

So consumed by his need to live in the realm of the gods that, in the end, it consumed him.

“Come on, then, Morse,” Thursday says, turning so that he falls behind Endeavour, and then shepherding him out toward the door. “Mind how you go.”

******

On the drive back to the Thursdays’, Endeavour’s mind is in overdrive.

Blackmail? Jealousy? Obsession? What is it that he’s looking at here? Two deaths in one week?

For, for all intents and purposes, Endeavour feels certain that Nick Wilding is dead. Or that he’s dead to this world, at any rate.

 It took ten years for their group to reach that mortality level. These deaths must be more than mere accidents, more than crimes of passion, even. There must be something else here, something more malicious at play.

Endeavour wants nothing more than to go home to Lorraine. But he knows that he will regret it if he walks away now, if he doesn’t try to stop this.

He owes it to himself to try. He owes it to Thursday. And he owes it to Nick Wilding and Barry Finch.

But most of all, he owes it to Pippa.

Their Pippa, not The Wildwood’s Pippa.

Their Pippa, who told him, “Let’s not go back, Pagan.”  Who he roundly ignored. Who ended up getting sent down just a month or so after he had.

Pippa, who must have lived for years wondering if she was perhaps deranged, to be capable of inventing such a terrible, vicious nightmare. When, all along, it was just the opposite: all along, she had been the only one to understand the truth.

How can he walk away now, pretend that this isn’t happening? When that’s exactly what he had done before?

 

******

Endeavour pulls down the covers and half-falls into bed.

He’s never been so grateful for Bixby.

He’s glad that Bix can be a bit naïve, that he gets such a charge out of glittering parties and spectacle and colored lights and expensive automobiles and vintage champagnes. He’s glad he’s made so happy by the things of this world that he doesn’t go looking beyond doors and tearing through veils. Bixby doesn’t need all of that. He sees a miracle even in a snowfall.  

Henry had dismissed Bixby as shallow and a sham, but Endeavour has come to understand that Bixby does have a certain kind of wisdom, a sort that people like Henry and Nick Wilding overlook. Why go looking for things that are beyond the door, when this world is complicated and dangerous enough?

No, wait. That’s not what Bixby would say.

That’s what he, Endeavour, would say.

Bixby would say: Why go looking for things beyond the door, when this world is wondrous and beautiful enough?

It takes a certain talent to behold this terrible place and see the splendor in it. Nick Wilding and Henry Winter didn’t have it. Endeavour doesn’t have it. But when he’s with Bixby, he does have it, if only for a little while.

Endeavour pulls Bix over to him and kisses the top of his head. Then he kisses it again. His hair carries the faint, masculine sent of his shampoo, and Endeavour ruffles it a bit with his cheek, taking a deep breath. Then he smooths it back down.  He is a bit vain, Endeavour thinks fondly. He’s always checking his reflection in windows and mirrors.

Endeavour doesn’t mind. It’s what made him realize early on, that whatever Bix must have done to cause him to change his name and hide his original identity, his conscience must be pretty clear about it. Whenever he does check his reflection, his full lips always twitch a bit, as if he’s pleased with what he sees.

How many people can say that?

 

Bixby chuckles warmly, his face muffled in Endeavour’s chest. “Um. What are you doing?”

“Oh, sorry,” Endeavour says. “Did I wake you?”

“That would be a safe assumption, yes,” Bixby says. “Difficult to sleep through being mauled.”

Bixby pulls back and opens his eyes. And they are brown and warm and alive even in the moonlit room.

Endeavour didn’t mean to wake him, but he’s glad he’s awake. He rests his forehead against his and puts one arm around him, resting his hand on his back, pulling him slightly forward. 

“Everything all, right?” Bixby asks. “Did you and Thursday find that Nick fellow?”

“Yes,” Endeavour says. “It was bloody awful.”

Bixby pulls back again, propping himself up on one elbow, resting his head in his fist, so that he can scrutinize Endeavour’s face. But Endeavour moves forward, following his movement, keeping one lanky arm firm around him.

“What happened?” Bixby asks.

“I don’t know. He had taken some sort of drug. Or someone gave him something. LSD. An overdose. He’s alive, but he’s not there anymore. I mean. In his eyes. There’s nothing. He just lies there.”

“Jesus,” Bixby breathes. “Will he be all right?”

Endeavour shudders. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe that’s just how he is now.”

Endeavour says nothing, but his mind is whirling. Maybe there is something wrong with him. But he’s never, at least, been like that.

“You always hear what I say, don’t you?” Endeavour asks. “I mean, it might not make sense, but you can hear that I’m talking, right?”

“What?” Bixby asks.

“Never mind,” Endeavour says. Yes, Bixby always hears him, at least. When people ask him things, he’s pretty certain that he always answers, even if people find the answer strange.

 

And, after all, what’s so wrong with that? Everyone does something odd now and then. Even easygoing Bixby. He’ll never forget the first time he had stumbled upon him in his study, newspapers opened to the stock pages spread out all over the floor, and he walking amongst them. Stepping this way and that, turning among them like a child in a garden maze.

“What on earth you doing?” he had asked.

“It’s a bit of secret, old man,” he said.

All right, Endeavour had thought.

 

Maybe Endeavour’s connection to the real world is more tenuous than it should be, but he does still have one. That life line is still there.

He can’t be dreaming all this. In his dreams, it’s difficult to talk. In his dreams, he can never dial a phone. He tries and tries and he can’t get the number right.  But in real life, he can dial a phone, he can talk. He can reach and pull himself closer to Bixby, rest his head on a shoulder that is solid and firm and smooth and warm.

He’ll go home tomorrow, and everything will be all right.

He’s not sure now why he thought he should stay here in Oxford, why he thought he should keep working on this case.

He wasn’t a detective anymore. He was a writer now, and that wasn’t always as romantic as it sounded. It meant more, Endeavour had come to learn, then just writing. It meant meeting with editors, and checking proofs and paying attention to printing schedules and deadlines. He would go home and get something for Turner together—that was what was important.

The Wildwood had nothing to do with him and his friends at Oxford. And, at any rate, that was all in the past. His future was with Bixby. He didn’t want to jeopardize his job now; he didn’t want to go back to being some sponger, living off Bixby’s largesse. And he’d rather die a thousand deaths then ask Bix for that advance money back, to repay Turner if he breaks his contract.  

Endeavour reaches up and begins absentmindedly carding his hand through Bixby’s hair, when Bixby breaks him out of his reverie.

 “Deavour?”  

“Hmmmmm?” 

Bixby is regarding him, a faint line between his brows. “Why did you say that earlier, about 2017?”

Oh, not this. He had thought they had each understood that they would never, ever bring that up again.

“I don’t know. Please don’t think about it. Let’s just pretend this whole day never happened.” 

“No,” Bixby says. “I mean, why did you seem to think I would be alive in 2017 and you wouldn’t?  You’re three and a half years younger than I am. If you think I’d be alive, why wouldn’t you?”

“Three years and five months is statistically insignificant in considering one’s life span,” Endeavour says.

“Oh, what a clinical way to put it. Too bad it doesn’t at all answer my question.”

 “I don’t know,” Endeavour sighs. “You just run differently that I do, that’s all. I just think I’ll wear out faster. I’m not trying to be maudlin about it. It just is. I’m glad I’ll die first, actually.”

Bixby stills at this. Then he can feel him shift beside him: it’s subtle, but some part of him has pulled away. “Thanks a lot,” Bix snorts.

Endeavour looks up. Is he angry about something? He studies his expression, but his face is closed, unreadable. “Bix?” he asks, uncertainly.

But Bixby doesn’t answer. Then he says, “Why do you keep calling me that? You used to call me Joss every now and then.”

Endeavour feels suddenly as if he’s drowning under waves of confusion. He’s not sure what’s made Bixby so unhappy, how to handle two lobs at once.

The second lob seems too complicated to tackle—the honest answer is simply that Joss, Endeavour had always thought, was a nickname for Joseph. And he just doesn’t seem like a Joseph.  

Well. Maybe it would be better to address the first.

“I’m not trying to be . . .,” Endeavour begins. “I was just being practical. All I meant was. You never needed me the way I need you.”

A series of expressions flickers over Bixby’s face. It’s as if he’s deciding something, but Endeavour doesn’t know what. Then, finally, he smiles, and Endeavour feels himself releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

“Well, you have to at least be around in the year 2000. How’s that then, hmmmmm? I’m already planning a momentous New Year’s party, old man. We’re bringing in the new millennium in style, that’s for damn sure,” Bixby says with a soft laugh.

“No. The new millennium won’t begin until 2001,” Endeavour says.

 “What?” Bixby says. “That’s nonsense.”

“No, it isn’t. There was no year zero.”

Bixby laughs. “Oh really? How enlightening.”

“No,” Endeavour says. “I mean, think about it: the first century began in the year 1 and lasted until 100. The second century, then, began with the year 101 and ended in 200. So, the twenty-first will begin in 2001 and last until 2100.”

Bixby appears to think this over for a moment. Then he dismisses it with a roll of his eyes. “Well, no one is going to care about that, I can assure you—people don’t care about the specifics; It’s seeing all of those nines roll over to zeros—that’s what matters.”

“But . .” Endeavour begins.

“And I’m having the party to top it all. And times will have changed by then, so I’ll go ahead and invite everyone. We’ll fill the house. And right at midnight, I’ll give you a big filthy kiss right in the middle of the dance floor. Ha!”

“Oh God,” Endeavour groans.

Bixby frowns. “What on earth is wrong with that?

“I’ll be so old. No one is going to want to see that.”

“Well, that just shows what you know, old man. I think we’ll still look pretty damn good,” Bixby says.

Endeavour laughs at that. He doesn’t think he looks particularly good right now; God knows what he’ll look like at sixty-one. “ _You’ll_ still look good,” Endeavour corrects. “You’ll most likely just go gray at the temples and still be all dapper as hell.  But I’ll probably look like a cross old crow.”

Bixby runs his thumb over Endeavour’s forehead, smoothing the furrows there. “Yes, I imagine you will, if you keep scowling over things that won’t happen for thirty years. Just give up on this 2001 idea. I can tell you’re still quibbling about that. I can tell you now, no one is going to care.”

“But . . .” Endeavour begins again.

But Bixby cuts him off. “I’ll tell you what. You come to my absolutely spectacular and unbelievable pull-out-all the stops party in 2000, and in 2001, I’ll come celebrate with you and the five pretentious sods who give a rat’s arse about your little math problem. Where’s it to be? The library? We can all talk about the great books that shaped the twentieth century. It will be a riot.”

Endeavour laughs. “All right,” he says. “I know what book you’ll chose already, old sport.”

“Oh, do you?” Bixby asks. “How do you know I won’t chose your book?”

“Hmmmm…. I thought you said my ‘things were too . . .’ ” he draws out his voice so that it’s smooth like Bixby’s and waves his hand about airily in an approximation of how Bixby had done earlier that night.

“They are,” Bixby says. “That’s why I like them. It’s like going to another country. Besides, you shouldn’t disparage my literary tastes. You, forget, I’m the one who discovered you, so all of those hep cats and look-a-likes can put that in their pipe and smoke it.”

And Endeavour realizes: it’s true—and if he discovered me, that means I can’t have discovered him.

Bixby seems pleased with the idea. “I heard one of your little look-a-likes in London say, ‘I was reading Endeavour Morse before he was named Poet of the Year in ‘69.’ Wonder what he’d say if I told him, “I was reading Endeavour Morse since I picked up a stepped-on looking notebook off of the floor of a lake house. Actually, I had to pick Endeavour Morse up off the floor a few days later. My God. You were carrying on as if I killed you.”

Endeavour scowls. He doesn’t much like remembering that day. If anyone else had done that to him, he never would have spoken to them again.

“I still think you’d chose your favorite, old sport." Then Endeavour realizes: isn't there something about that that's concerning? Does Bixby know how that turns out?

"Have you ever read that book to the end?” Endeavour asks. “It’s sort of an odd choice to take as a guidebook. He ends up shot in a swimming pool, did you know?”  

But Bix seems to think he's trying to make a joke. “That’s it. Right on back to that, eh? I suppose that makes you quite clever. But not quite as clever as I am. Did you notice what I just did?”

“What?”

“You’re thinking that I went along with you, and your 2001 party, but, look, I’ve just committed you to sticking around for another year.”

Endeavour pauses for a moment, perplexed.

Bixby just laughs and takes his face in his hands, pulling him forward and planting a smacking kiss on his forehead, where his brow is furrowed in confusion.

“So now you’re stuck here until 2001. So much the worse for you. You’ll be, what, 62, come New Year’s?  Hardly ancient. Even you could manage to muster up that much ambition, for God’s sake.”

And Bixby is smiling, and it’s so easy to fall into the warm brown eyes, amber and sunlit even in the dark. The only one way to win an argument with Bixby is to end it, and so Endeavour moves forward and presses his lips to his. 

 Bixby murmurs his approval into Endeavour’s mouth and runs his hands down to his waist, holding him steadily in that way that makes Endeavour feel as if his whole body is unwinding, as if he needn’t fear flying into pieces. Endeavour tips his head back and parts his lips, and then their mouths are sliding together, pliant and insistent. It’s a jumble of sensations—the softness of kisses that land on his mouth and the shivering burn of kisses that slide slightly-off center, along the stubble of his face. He could lie here and float and kiss him forever, Endeavour thinks, his warm body stretched out alongside his.

Endeavour runs his hands up through the thick, dark hair and kisses him again. Then Bixby’s hands trail gently down and cup his arse, pulling Endeavour up closer against him, so that his length is pressed firmly against his. Bixby’s fingers trace along the cleft of his arse and Endeavour shudders against him.

Suddenly, he doesn’t want to lie here forever. He wishes they were home right now, in their own bed.

It’s maddening, feeling Bixby’s hands only through layers fabric when he’s longing to have them flush and warm against him. They had skipped this phase in their relationship: On the night after their first real conversation on the dock, Pagan had wandered back out into the woods and found Bixby waiting, still as a statue and dressed in an evening suit, as if he and Pagan had made some sort of standing agreement. And then, in the next moment, Pagan had collided against him and they were pulling off each other’s clothes without so much as a word passing between them.

Bixby must be thinking along the same lines—for at that moment, he plants a line of kisses from the hollow of his throat up his jawline. When he reaches his ear, he whispers, “Hey, baby, can I take you home?”

Yes, Endeavour thinks. If we ever get home, I’m never, ever leaving.

He feels Bixby go still, stiffen a bit beside him.

Had he said that out loud?

Endeavour swoops down and kisses his again, rolling his weight slightly forward, so that his length strokes over Bixby’s in a way that Endeavour hopes will drive the words he might have just said completely out of his head.

Tomorrow, they’d go home, and Bixby would see that he was fine and they were fine, and that’s fine, then.

The case wasn’t his concern. He’d walk away from Oxford, and this time, he’d never look back.

It’s none of his concern, this case. None at all. He’s not a detective.

No, Morse, he isn’t.  

 

******

Shirley Trewlove was a serious young woman.

So the only way George Fancy could think of to garner her attention was to prove that he was a serious young man.

Even though . . . actually, he wasn’t.

But his mother had always said: your habits become your character. So, perhaps he could try.  Certainly, his newest scheme couldn’t possibly go over any worse than his opening overture.

 

“ _What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”_

_“My job,” she said._

 

Damn. With those two words, he was head over heels.

Well, he’d show her that he took his job just as seriously. That he respected her as a valued colleague, didn’t think of her as just as pretty face.

Although, she certainly did have a pretty face.

That morning, he was the first one at the nick. When she got in, she would find him already settled at his desk, toiling away, the bulk of the day’s paperwork complete; he’d be done with it before their sergeant even stepped into the office, ready to go out and pound the pavement if he needed.

It was the perfect plan.

Or, at least, it should have been.

 

Fancy looks up and groans.

Oh, no. Not this bloke. Fancy feels completely unequal to dealing with him. Who exactly is he, anyway?

 

That he was once Inspector Thursday’s protégé and is now a poet are the only two facts that Fancy is sure of, that are utterly verifiable. As for the rest— the rumors circulating around him certainly can’t all be true: that he was in prison for strangling a man, that, no, he was framed and the details surrounding the case had been sealed for fifty years, that he was once engaged to an earl’s daughter, that he had been to Oxford, where he ran with that nutty crowd who was in the papers a few years back, that he’d been knifed while chasing a serial killer in the Bodleian, that he was a drunk, that he was genius, that he was a complete bender, kept by some French billionaire.

Whoever the hell he is, Fancy can’t afford to get involved with whatever it is he’s scheming. He heard the man even had Thursday’s arse in the fire about that bag he had been complaining about that day he had come into the nick. And Fancy’s career isn’t anyway near as secure as Thursday’s.

Fancy looks down and continues filling out a form, while the man makes himself right at home at Sergeant Strange’s desk.

The sergeant won’t mind. He seems to be friends with the bloke.

But, no. Now he’s going through the evidence the sergeant has piled there about the Finch case. Surely, Fancy’s not allowed to let a civilian waltz in here and go through privileged information. He’s got to say something, at least.

“May I help you with something, uh, Morse?” he asks.

Morse sighs. “Listen to this,” he says, picking up a magazine and beginning to read.  “ ‘Christopher sometimes comes up with a bass riff that really fires me up. We all contribute to the arrangements, but sometimes he has an idea that totally transforms the song.’  Don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, really.”

Fancy isn’t sure what he means by that. He isn’t sure at all how to go about talking with the man. But he can’t blame him for being ambivalent about The Wildwood. Fancy was hardly a poet, not by any means, but he could understand how it must feel to have someone take something you’d written.

The night before that day that Morse had first come to the nick, Fancy had been up late, trying to write something for Trewlove, to tell her how he felt about her. It was around three in the morning that the horrible thought struck him: What if one of his flatmates ever got a hold of this and read it?

Or worse, what if Trewlove ever got hold of this and read it?

Fancy shredded the papers to bits and hid them in the bottom of the bin.

No wonder the man wasn’t that crazy about The Wildwood. Fancy couldn’t imagine how awful it would be if someone had gotten a hold of his letters to Shirley and put them on the radio.

 

“I’ve never been all that keen on The Wildwood,” Fancy says, trying to make conversation, trying to get some measure of the man.  “Always seemed a bit swotty to me. I prefer the Stones.”

Morse, now looking through some photographs, only snorted at this.

 “So, what?” Fancy asks. “You don’t like any rock music at all? Surely, you like the Beatles.”

Morse looks at him, a deadpan expression on his face. “You mean those people who brought us the momentous words: ‘She loves you yeah yeah yeah. She loves you yeah yeah yeah?’ I’m not sure I can forgive a song that revolves around a rhyming set such as “glad” and “bad.” There’s more complexity in a Mother Goose rhyme.”

 

Fancy decides to take that as a no.  

 

"What about some of their newer stuff?" he asks.

Morse wrinkles his nose. "I don't know. Sort of sounds like some drivel people might come up with when they're high on something. Doesn't it? There's no cohesive thread." 

“There must be _something_ you like,” Fancy persists.

Morse appears to give it some thought. “I thought I did, once. But I don’t much like it anymore.”

“Huh,” Fancy says. Well, that’s enigmatic. For a poet, he certainly is a terrible conversationalist.

 

Morse takes a record out of the sleeve and tilts it in the light.

“Hmmmm,” he hums to himself.  

 Then he picks up a pad of graph paper and begins writing letters across the top.

 

“What are you doing?” Fancy asks.

But Morse doesn’t answer. Instead, he’s busy writing columns of words under each letter on the paper. Well, as long as he’s playing some word game, at least he isn’t going through more of Strange’s things.

Fancy looks up to the front of the large, open room and sees that Trewlove has come in. She’s making her way through the ocean of desks, and, even from here, he can read the quizzical expression on her face. But Fancy’s got it all under control. Morse is all right. He’s not at all as intimidating or difficult as he had heard. He’s a bit of an awkward sod, really.

 

“Who wrote the song that you did like once? The Kinks?” Fancy asks.

Morse sits back in his chair, staring in wonderment at the paper before him. “Hmmmm?” he asks, clearly distracted. “No. I never . . . Oh, I think I’ve heard of the Kinks. Spender mentioned them.”

“Spender?” Fancy asks. “The Wildwood’s manager?”

“Yes,” Morse says. “He said he was planning a tour with them and The Wildwood. In America.”

“In America?” Fancy asks. “He can’t have done.”

Morse looks at him, for the first time clearly interested in what he has to say. “Why not?”

“The Kinks are banned in America. It’s something to do with work permits.”

Morse’s eyes widen at this. Then he grabs a set of car keys on Strange’s desk.  “I’ll be at Maplewick Hall, if anyone wants me,” he says.  

“What’s going on?” Trewlove asks.

“Fancy just solved the Finch case,” Morse says, and then he heads out towards the front doors.

I did? Fancy thinks.

“He _did_?” Trewlove calls after him.

Wait a second . . . She needn’t sound _so_ incredulous.

And wait a second . . . did Morse just take the keys to one of the Jags?

 

*******

“I’ll be at Maplewick Hall, if anyone wants me.”

Now why on earth had he said that?

He didn’t really work there anymore, after all. It must just have been the force of habit.

Morse’s habit. It was as if for a moment he’d forgotten and actually was . . .

And, oh hell, Endeavour thinks. Did I just steal a car?

Endeavour feels a surge of panic course through him. He knows he should turn around but he’s afraid to turn around, and his mind is a whirl of fear and thoughts and memories and half-forgotten snatches of conversation and . . .  

 

And, something had broken within the group. And Spender, wanting to protect his investment, was there to clean up.

It was right there, on the record: YEMKTTHL.

 

Yet Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves.

 

_“Susan!” Pagan called through the crowd._

_She turned the gun on him. “Get in the car, Devvy. We’re leaving.”_

 

Endeavour understands now that letting him go had been Susan’s attempt at working towards redemption.

I may have had a hand in ending a life, she might have thought, but it was an accident. I can’t change it. But at least I won’t drag Devvy into it.

 

_“You’ll never understand me. Henry’s the only one who will ever understand me,” Susan said._

 

As long as your sacrifice feels worthwhile, it’s easy to bear. It can even be a consolation. It saddened Endeavour to realize that meant she had to lie to herself for all of those years—to tell herself that she really loved him—in order for the forfeit of him to mean anything. For if she didn’t love him after all, wherein lay the sacrifice?

 

When Susan heard that he was leaving the country with Bixby, someone with no verifiable past, it must have pushed her to the edge. Why had she bothered to have made such a grand gesture, if Devvy was going to run off with someone even more suspect than she was?

And, to add insult to injury, not only was he leaving the country with someone with an even more dubious past, but with someone with whom she could not even truly compete.

 

“ _I wish you and Tony would stop carrying your reports of this Pagan and Bixby business to Susan,” Henry said. “She’s driving me mad. Poor darling. I almost feel sorry for her. It’s like some bastardized version of Pygmalion, one in which the statue jumps down off her pedestal and runs off with another woman.”_

But, for all her misguidedness, Susan was never malicious. The night of the last party in Oxfordshire, when she came in with Henry’s gun, Pagan never thought for one moment that she would kill him. Or even Bixby.

 

_“I don’t think, we’ve met my dear. Why don’t you come along with Pippa and me and we’ll get you a drink, yes?” Bixby said._

_“You’d better get away from him, or I’ll blow your head right off, do you understand?” Susan said._

_And then she fired the gun, once, blowing a hole in the oak floor._

But what if Susan had—instead of a guilty, struggling, damaged conscience—no conscience at all?

What if she, instead of aiming at the floor to express her rage, had aimed at Bixby? Or at him, figuring it would be better to kill him rather than allow him to leave the country with someone their set had concluded to be a complete, and possibly treacherous, fraud?

 

And what if either Anna-Britt or Emma had been faced with the same conundrum? Felt as if she had fallen in love with a man who seemed to be growing away from her? One who might be more difficult to obtain than she previously might have imagined?

 

_“Chris’ wife,” Anna-Britt said, archly. “Although for some reason, we aren’t supposed to tell anyone.”_

 

_"You know the song 'Jennifer Sometimes?' It’s about me. Nick wrote it and put my name in it,” Emma said._

_“Oh, did you go to school together, then, with Nick?” Endeavour asked._

_“No,” Emma said, “I just met him after a show.”_

_“Me and Chris used to look for mushrooms after school,” Nick said._

 

_Go back to the old school, look under the toadstool._

 

_“I did write one,” Nick said. “But the one I wrote—it was too blatant, I suppose. Also—well—to tell you the truth—it stirred up a bit of trouble. In the band. So Ken had me change it.”_

 

Trouble, of course it stirred up trouble in the band.

 

_"Christopher sometimes comes up with a bass riff that really fires me up."_

 

Because it’s not “Jennifer Sometimes.”

 

It’s “Christopher Sometimes.”

******

Maplewick Hall seems deserted—it’s sunlit and shadowed and silent. Endeavour wanders from room to room. The windows have all been thrown open in the hopes of catching a breeze, but it’s absolutely stifling. There’s not even a fan left on to stir the air.

“Hello?” he calls.

In the third room, he finds Emma, sitting at a small table, drinking a glass of lemonade.

“Hello,” he says. “I was wondering, if anyone from the band was here. Or Anna-Britt?”

“They’ve all gone to London, to take Nick to a specialist,” she says.

Endeavour reaches up and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He’s slightly uncertain as to what to do. He had hoped to have found them all here.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asks.

 “Yes, thank you,” he says. He walks casually over to the table, as if he has no express purpose in mind, and pours himself a glass of lemonade from the pitcher.

 

Is it her? Or Chris’ wife? Both might fit into the puzzle.

 

“I was wondering,” he asks, “how are things between Nick and Anna-Britt?”

“Why?” she asks.

“Just curious. She is Chris’ wife?”

“Yes,” Emma says.

 

 Just then, the phone begins to ring. “I had better get that,” she says, briskly, rising from her chair.

Once Emma’s gone, Endeavour takes a draught of lemonade and wanders about, looking for what the room might tell him. The book, _Justine_ , sitting on an ottoman. Silk scarves and empty glasses. And, tucked in a decorative mirror, a photo of Emma holding a camera.

So. She’s the one who took the photos of Nick, Barry and Pippa.

It’s not Anna-Britt.

It’s Emma.

 

Endeavour tries to keep his face impassive when she returns to the room, and she’s back fairly quickly; whoever it was she was talking to, she certainly didn’t converse with them long.

“You’re a keen photographer,” Endeavour says.

“It’s my thing. Ralph says we might do a book—pictures of the band,” she says.  

“So did you take this?” Endeavour asks, flashing the photo. “That’s Nick, Pippa, and Barry Finch, isn’t it? Did they know you’d taken it?” He takes a glance at the picture. “No, I suppose not. They’re asleep.”

“Nick asked me to,” Emma says.

“I don’t think so, no. I think this was private. I doubt anyone knew, except those involved, and you, of course. Only . . . you weren’t invited.”

“Anyone knew what?” she asks.

“That Nick was sleeping with Pippa and Barry Finch. It’s there in the title of their new album. Boys and Girls come out to play. Boys AND girls. There’s also a message on the groove of their LP. YEMKTTH: 4099.”

“That’s just a matrix number,” Emma protests.

 

Oh, no it isn’t, Endeavour thinks. And then the words come in rush.

 

“Yet Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves. 4099. The prisoner number assigned to Oscar Wilde when he was sent to Reading Gaol. I think that you couldn’t stand that Nick was sleeping with Barry Finch. You waited until he passed out, and then you strangled him. Nick must have come to, his mind clouded by drink and drugs, and found Barry dead beside him. He couldn’t be sure that his sex game hadn’t gone wrong.”

“What sex game?” Emma asks.

“In _Justine,_ one character has another hang him to the point of unconsciousness. I think Nick experimented with the same idea. The thing is, all you had to do that night was wait.”

“What?”

“By the time you strangled Barry Finch, he was already dying. He’d had a bad reaction to the drugs he’d taken. You thought that with Barry out of the way, Nick might be yours. But then you realized he never would have been. That’s why you slipped him the LSD,” Endeavour says.

“Why would I hurt Nick?” Emma cries, outraged. “I love him! He loves me! He wrote Jennifer Sometimes for me.”

“No. No, he didn’t. The lyrics don’t apply to you. They do apply to Christopher Clark. It’s Christopher Sometimes. But they could hardly put that on the radio.”

“If it wasn’t for me,” she asks, “why would he call it ‘Jennifer Sometimes?’”   

“To make scansion. Christopher. Jennifer. Same amount of sylla . . . “

“

Something wrong?” she asks, and in a flash, her manner changes, from desperate to satisfied. “You have nothing to be afraid of. Unless you have.”

 

He never would have expected it would happen this way: one moment, he had been talking quite reasonably, and the next, the words just simply wouldn’t come, and the floor was falling out from underneath him. Is this what the end would feel like, then?

There were so many times he had felt he was Pagan and falling over the precipice, other times when the words had been ripped right out of him, and he searched though the lake house and he searched all through the house in Lorraine, and how can Thursday not understand “ _what evidence_ ”? Wasn’t that perfectly, painstakingly clear?

 As long as he could find the words, he had a life line back into the world.

And now he had no words and he fell and fell and Pagan waited for Endeavour to snap up on the rope, to pull him back, but, no, the mosaic tile beneath him became quicksand, and he was falling.

If only he could get outside; Endeavour always felt better outside. He pushed open a door, but it led to more rooms and then there were more rooms beyond.

And he was Endeavour, and he wanted to get out of that house, but that bastard Pagan, he never forgave anyone anything. Not really. Because Endeavour looked up, and there he was, up on the landing—Pagan looking down at him, his hands in his pockets, looking at him with a face full of contempt.

Endeavour reached up to call him back. Not now, he called. Not now. You can’t leave now, you can’t, and Endeavour was pleading and Pagan just shook his head at him, as if he were hopeless, as if he were pathetic.

And then, he turned and walked away.

 

Endeavour should have known that it had all been too good to be true. Right when he had thought he had pieced it together, everything was flying apart. It had all just been one cruel, final burst of clarity before the end.

 

Somehow, he had fallen on the floor. And that was all right, that was good, he was better off moving across the floor, he had a better grip on solid ground, maybe he wouldn’t fall any further.

But no, he was lost, he was plummeting, and he rolled over and it was Pippa, their Pippa, brunette, not blonde. And she raised a letter opener, of all things, the perfect weapon to rip out his words, and he was surprised she would do this, but he saw the justice in it. She’s the one he couldn’t bear to think about—how she must have seen, she must have seen something. Please Pagan let’s not go back. Don’t leave me here Pagan let’s go to the road let’s try to get a ride back to Oxford. And he: no, we can’t, she’s waiting for me.

 

But as the flash of the letter opener falls gold and bright in the sun, she pulls away, and there’s a voice, even though no one is talking. “Morse, Morse,” it calls. And Endeavour hurls up an arm to protect himself from that god-awful name. It’s Morse, Morse that leads him into same old nightmare again and again.

And he throws his arms up over his head. “What have you given him? What have you given him?" And it’s a voice from nowhere, a voice of judgment. “What have you given him?”

 

And he’s given him nothing nothing nothing. He couldn’t even call him Joss. He doesn’t look like a Joseph and I’m sorry I’m sorry but it’s all a lie.

 

He has to get out of here. He scrambles to his feet. He needs to get outside. He pulls up, and there’s a way out, out into the sun, and he climbs toward it, but something catches at him, some unknown force pulls him back into the shadows. What the hell? The world spins upside down and he sets his feet firm, and then he’s off and he’s running and he’ll get out of this place. Where is this, anyway?

And he runs from room to room and there must be a door to get outside but footsteps are behind him. He whips around, but there’s no one there. Someone is following him and it’s not safe so he runs and he bursts into a room.

And, oh hell.

 

They’re everywhere.

It’s an enormous, open room and he and Pagan and Morse are multiplied all along the walls. He feels and stumbles for something, any weapon, and finds a chair. God damn it. He’s sick of them all. He raises the chair against that God damn Pagan and smashes him with it. He flies apart in a shatter and crash that sounds like glass.

And it was all a lie. It wasn’t real. They aren’t real. He raises the chair again and again and glass flies like crystals and crashes like falling rain. He smashes the chair wildly until his shoulders are aching. “It’s not real,” he says. “It’s not real,” and he’s talking and he can hear his voice in his ears. “It’s not real.”

And, from far away, that disembodied, rumbling voice confirms it. “That’s right, lad.” Where is it coming from? 

But then, he sees another false Morse, who stands there looking at him like a madman. And as Endeavour raises a chair, he raises one, too. And they smash against each other. There’s so many of them—these false Pagans and Morses and Endeavours —and he has to smash them all.

And, finally, he’s the only one left standing. And he’s Endeavour and he’s Pagan and he’s Morse, and they’ve all just been him, all along. They've all just been him, all along. And glitter and grit and glass are falling like stars and he’s falling and it’s just been him all along.

“It’s just me,” he says. And suddenly, he wants to find Bixby. “Bix?” he shouts “Bix? It’s just me!  Bix?”

He runs down the hall amidst the fallen diamonds and finds Bix’s study. But the door won’t open. It’s almost as if it’s not a door at all, but a solid wall. But that doesn’t make sense; he’s walked down this hall a hundred times, and he knows there’s a door there.

“Bix?” He pounds on the door. And he’s too late. Bixby doesn’t want him. He won’t open the door. But if only he knew, maybe he would change his mind. “Bix? Bix? It’s just me.”

"It's just me! Bix? It's me."

"Who are you?" 

The moment the thought forms, it feels like a betrayal. Now, he's just like the others. 

And he bangs on the door again, but he knows that Bixby is through with him. He’d never ignore him like this, not while he called out as if his heart was breaking and his heart is breaking and he crashes his hand against the door. “It’s just me, Bix. It’s just me.” But he won’t answer. And Endeavour falls down to the floor, and he bangs his hand against the wall, but it’s all futile, futile, he’s too late and Bixby won’t open the door.

And it’s all too late and now he’ll never see what was beyond the door. He’ll never know: who was he, anyway?

Now he was too late and it’s a fake, it’s a copy. And, no, the real one hangs in the Rijksmuseum. I’ve seen it.  

*******

The words Dr. DeBryn had spoken ran like a tape reel through Thursday’s mind.

_“Could LSD have stopped Finch’s heart? It’s possible. Overstimulation of the nervous system? It’s rare, but it could have done. Most deaths from LSD are accidental. It’s not usually toxic chemically, but behaviorally. Compromised rationality, loss on inhibition—leading its victims to walk into traffic, onto railway lines off of high buildings, that sort of thing . . .”_

 

When Morse stumbled into the ballroom and began smashing at the mirrored walls, Thursday felt absolutely ripped into two. On the one hand, surely crashing at the glass would keep him occupied; the danger of minor cuts from flying glass seemed preferable to Morse making another break for that window, for example.

At least this was keeping him occupied, at least this was keeping him confined to one room, until, mercifully, the ambulance arrived.

But watching the rage with which Morse railed against his reflections was difficult to take. Between the war and his years on the beat, Thursday had seen the full spectrum of fury, countless men with murder and revenge in their eyes—but this? A hatred that seemed to be so directed inwards?

Morse seemed to loathe the reflections he hurled the chair at, uttering guttural cries and sending broken shards flying in all directions.

Then, for a moment, a measure of sanity seemed to break through the clouds. “It’s not real,” Morse chanted, as he smashed at his reflection. “It’s not real.”

“That’s right, lad,” Thursday said, quietly, hoping to calm him. But Morse looked up, as if fearful, as if he couldn’t tell from where the voice he might have heard was coming from.

By the time Morse began hitting his hands against the wall as though the wall were a doorway he might break through, Thursday could hear the medics downstairs. He wanted to call to them, but was afraid of confusing Morse again, so he kept silent, staying between Morse and the doorway.

It was just as well. By the time the medics found them, Morse had crumpled to the floor, banging his hand on the wall and shouting a torrent of incomprehensible words. Thursday thought this might make it easy for the medics to take care of him, give him a shot to knock him out, something. Instead, when two of them swooped down to take Morse by the upper arms, Morse completely snapped. He fought them like a caged animal, cursing and thrashing in their arms.

Christ. It was a horror. Thursday found himself praying that he would just give up, quiet down, trust them for God’s sake. 

Once they strapped him onto a gurney, Morse went oddly silent. As if he had given up. Then, he looked just like Nick Wilding, and Thursday found himself wishing he would struggle again against the bonds, curse them all to hell. 

***************

On the ride to the hospital, Thursday begins to feel a surge of hope. Morse is staring at the ceiling, but it’s not quite in the way that Nick Wilding had done. It’s as if he knows he’s trapped, and he’s made a conscious decision to flee the scene, to tune out what’s happening, until has another chance to make a break for it.

“You’re all right, Morse,” Thursday says.

Something seems to shift behind the blank, blue gaze. He can’t be imagining it. Morse can’t go the way of Nick Wilding.

“Morse?”

Morse’s vacant eyes trace along the ceiling of the ambulance, his pupils blown wide. Then they trace towards him.  

Morse mumbles something unintelligible, but Thursday feels certain he hears the syllable “Bix” amidst the slur of sounds.

This makes a lot of sense to Thursday. Morse must feel as if he’s dying. Thursday remembers that, on the night he was shot at Blenheim Vale, he had wanted nothing more than the chance to talk to Win once more before he went.  

“I expect he’s still at ours, lad. The note you left was a bit sketchy on the details,” Thursday says.  

Morse blinks at him, as though he’s trying to make sense of what he said.

“Morse? You’re going to hospital, all right? I'll call Bix when we get there, how's that?" 

Thursday had meant to be encouraging, but there's a flicker of something across his face that looks like defeat. 

"Morse?" Thursday prompts. 

Morse murmurs something in response, and his eyes, thank Christ, drift slowly closed.

Then, it's just as if he's sleeping. 

Thursday feels placated. Nick Wilding had just stared into space. At least Morse seemed to hear him. And now, if he didn't know any better, he'd think Morse was just taking a quick nod. He’s doing much better than Nick Wilding already.

Then, despite this upwelling of relief, Thursday feels his heart sink.

 

“It’s not real, it’s not real,” Morse had chanted, with an oddly systematic air.

 It occurs to Thursday that maybe he’s managing better than Nick Wilding because he’s had more practice.  That he’s been living in his own shattered reality for so long, that he’s learned how to navigate the currents of it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized as I was looking over this to post that it would be easy to construe that this is heading in the direction of "it was all a dream." I'd never do that after all this time! Just thought I would put that disclaimer out there :0)


	9. Chapter 9

Thursday sits in a deep chair by the foot of the hospital bed, trying to be patient.

The longer Morse remains out for the count, Thursday thinks, the more likely it is that he’ll just sleep this whole nightmare off— that when he does open his eyes, they’ll have settled from wildly-blown black to their usual, thoughtful blue.

On the other hand, Thursday is anxious for Morse just to wake the hell up and talk to him. To assure him that he’s all right, that no permanent damage was done by whatever that herbal cocktail was he’d ingested.

But Morse remains silent, russet lashes closed gently over a flushed and sunburnt face, breathing deeply and evenly. Thursday sits and waits.

Then, Morse turns and snuffles into the pillow. It’s so much like Sam would do on a rainy school morning, so much like the natural action of one waking reluctantly from a healthy sleep, that Thursday feels his spirits rise.

“Morse?” he asks softly. “Morse?”

Morse scowls slightly at the sound of his name. Then, his eyes slide open. They’re closer to their normal blue, but still strangely dilated—unfocused and bloodshot. He blinks a few times, looking utterly bewildered. Thursday holds his breath.

“What day is it?” Morse mumbles.

And then, it comes to Thursday, the simplest way to test Morse’s bearings—the game they had played when Morse was his bagman, although the last time they had played it was years ago, sitting on a swing by Lake Silence while Bixby soared off in the distance on a red hydroplane. And even then, it had been with a twist.

 

_Thursday pulled out a sandwich, wrapped in wax paper. He held it out to Morse, leaving the question in the air._

_But Morse only smiled and said, “I have absolutely no idea what day it is, sir.”_

_“No?”_

_“No.”_

_“Got to rub it in to us working stiffs, is that it?”_

_Morse laughed._

_“Well, we’ll just have to work in reverse, won’t we?” he said._

_He unwrapped the sandwich. “Luncheon meat,” Thursday announced._

_“It’s Tuesday,” said Morse._

_Thursday looked up, surprised at the familiar tight-lipped smile spreading across Morse’s face._

_“That it is,” Thursday said._

 

 Does Morse still remember? It would be telling if he did. Thursday leans forward and pronounces two words: “Corned beef.”

Morse looks utterly lost for a moment, then he raises his eyebrows as if he gets it, a smile spreading across his face that seems to say, “Well, of course.” Then he frowns.

“Oh, damn, that will be the Zegna,” he mutters absently. “I’ve gotten it all moldy.” He sighs sorrowfully. “That poor man. It takes him three hours to go anywhere.” And then his eyes drift closed, and his slow, deep breathing resumes.

Thursday swallows. God damn it. That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

Thursday scrubs his hands with his face, and then presses them over his eyes. Suddenly, he feels drained. Suddenly, he feels old and tired.

But wait. Perhaps it could make sense.

Perhaps Morse it just still preoccupied with Bixby. He did seem to be asking for him in the ambulance. And, although you wouldn’t think to refer to Bix as a “poor man,” Morse, who never seems to bother to comb his hair more than three times a week, might see the hours it takes Bixby to dress as a sad waste of his time.

Bix was a bit of a clotheshorse, it seemed. Some of the best times Thursday had spent with Morse during their visit in Lorraine took place in the mornings, when he and Morse were left to sit in the drawing room while they waited for Bix and Win to get ready so that they could go out for the day. Sometimes, it _had_ felt like three hours.

Perhaps he’s just muttering something about Bixby?

Or, maybe, Thursday is just grasping at straws.

 

Thursday hears footsteps coming up the hall, and he lowers his hands and looks up.

It’s Bixby. He takes one look at Morse, silent in the hospital bed, and an oddly stoic expression flickers over his face. It’s an expression Thursday has seen before, but he can’t quite place it.

And then it hits him: he looks like the villagers he had seen in Italy, those who had returned after a bombing raid to find their homes a smoldering wreck.

 

“What the hell is going on here?” Bixby asks.

Thursday takes a deep breath. “He was drugged, it seems,” he says. “He got some bee in his bonnet about the Finch case, evidently. Constable Fancy told us that he said he was going out to Maplewick Hall. Sergeant Strange and I went out to check and . . . ”  Thursday isn’t sure how to continue. Does he need to know the details?

Bixby storms into the room and goes up to Morse, taking one freckled shoulder in his hand and titling it, as if searching for something on his arm. “What, did they inject him with something?”

“No,” Thursday says. “It looks as if it was mixed into a glass of lemonade.”

“Lemonade?” Bixby asks wonderingly.

 “Doctor’s been by,” Thursday says. “He said that, so far, there isn’t any reason not to hope he’ll make a full recovery. He said they’d be sending someone by in bit, to give him a few tests.”

 

Bixby goes still at this.

“Tests? What sort of tests?” he says sharply.

“Just a few simple ones, he said,” Thursday explains. “Psychological, neurological, just to be sure there wasn’t any lasting damage done.”

Bixby appears to mull this over. Then he says, “Do you have much interaction with the doctors, here, being an inspector? I’d imagine you’re called over here quite regularly—victims of violent crimes, thugs who’ve beaten or stabbed or shot one another . . . ”

“Yes,” Thursday replies.  “I suppose you could say that.”

“Do you know if any of the doctors here might have a gambling problem? A wife with champagne tastes who may have run him into debt?”

“What?” Thursday asks.

“Never mind,” Bixby says. And with that, he strides out the door.

 

What’s this? Where’s he off to? You would think that he would have waited for Morse to wake up, at least.

  
Well, Thursday’s going to stay put. He wants Morse to see a familiar face when he wakes; that’s bound to help.

 

In fifteen minutes or so, Bixby returns with a doctor with wild white hair and a trim white beard.

“Mr. Morse,” the doctor says. “Glad to see you looking so much better.”

What the . . . ? Why is the man speaking to Morse? The lad is clearly off in La La Land.  

The doctor picks up a clipboard at the end of Morse's bed and signs it. As he goes out the door, Bixby passes him a few folded bank notes.

 

Then it hits Thursday.

 

“You don’t think he’s all right,” he says. “You think he won’t pass the tests.”

Bixby stops for a moment, as if considering this. “Do I think he’s all right?” Bixby says, finally. “Yes.  Do I think he’ll pass their tests?” Bixby pauses. “No.”

“But if there’s a problem, isn’t it better if it’s found out?” Thursday asks.

Bixby looks at him disdainfully. “And then what? Say some shrink who doesn’t understand him says he’s incompetent. That he needs a legal guardian. Are you his next of kin? Because I’m sure not.”

Thursday says nothing. He remembers stopping by that grim house up north after Morse’s father died, and he’s fairly certain he knows where Bix is heading.

“Do you know who most likely is?” Bixby continues. “Some old woman in Lincolnshire I haven’t even laid eyes on. She didn’t much want him when he was a child, but I imagine she won’t mind him now that he comes with a fat royalty check in the post every six months.” Bixby laughs bitterly. “No, I don’t think so,” he says.

He flashes Thursday a challenging look, as if daring him to defy him, but any argument Thursday might think to make is lost.

 

Bixby turns to sit on the edge of the bed and then shakes Morse’s shoulder.

“Endeavour. Deavour?”

“Hmmmmmm….?”

“Endeavour. Wake up.”

Morse turns his head on the pillow and blinks slowly, as though he’s trying to focus. Then, he wakes with a jump and a sharp intake of breath.

“Bix?”

“Yes.”

“You came back?”

A flicker of confusion passes over Bixby’s face.

“Yes,” he says.

“Well, why wouldn’t you open the door?”

Bixby hesitates. “Ah. Well. I didn’t hear you.”  

 

What the hell? Why is Bixby going along with Morse on this, acting as if his delusions were real? Thursday’s tempted to set Morse straight, to tell him there never was a damn door. For it’s clear to Thursday now that that must have been what Morse was thinking when he was pounding on the wall before the medics came.

 

“Of course, you must have done,” Morse says.  “I was shouting and shouting but you wouldn’t . . .” Morse’s voice falls off and his eyes dart about the room at unclockable speed. Then he groans unhappily. “Where’s this? I don’t know how I got here,” he says.

“You’re in hospital. You were drugged, evidently. But the doctor says you’re fine, that we can go,” Bix says.

 

Well, it’s clear to Thursday that Bix is going to say whatever is most expedient, whatever will get them out of here the quickest.

 

“Drugged?” asks Morse in wonderment. Then his eyes drift closed.

“Yes. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” Morse says, his eyes remaining softly shut.

Bixby looks slightly pained. “Well, what do you remember?”

“Hmmmmmmm? I was looking at photographs. I went out to Maplewick Hall. I knew it must have been either Emma or Anna-Britt . . . .  Drugged?” Morse asks, blinking his eyes wide.

“Yes,” Bixby says.

“Like Nick Wilding?” he asks, and the worry is clear in his voice.

“Not quite,” Thursday clarifies. “It wasn’t LSD. Some herbal concoction of jimsonweed, henbane and mandrake.”

“Oh,” Morse says, airly. “It must have been in the lemonade she gave me. After I drank it, it felt as if the floor was falling away.”

“How did she get you to drink the blasted stuff?” Bixby asks, a note of impatience entering his voice.

“Hmmmmm? Oh. It was just so hot.”

Bixby’s face looks like it could be cut from stone. “So, what you’re telling me is: you went out to a house where one person had died of mysterious causes, another drugged into a vegetative state, to accuse a young woman of murder, and when she offered you lemonade, you just _drank_ it?”

Morse pauses. “Well,” he says. “When you say it like _that._ ”

 

Bixby looks quite like he’d like to hit something. Morse’s eyes drift closed again.

 “Deavour?” Bixby says. “Don’t fall asleep now. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving? But I’m so tired. I feel as if I’m made of lead.” He turns his head and shifts it deeper into the pillow. “Just give me five minutes.”

“No. I won’t give you five minutes. Get up.”

“But why?” he asks fretfully, a crease forming between his brows.

“You can either come with me now and rest at the Thursdays and be left alone, or you can stay here and wait for someone to come in and ask you all sorts of questions. Now which will it be?” Bixby says.

“What sorts of questions?” Morse asks, half-interested, his eyes still closed.

“Well, there’s this one for starters. ‘What’s your name?’”

Morse huffs a small laugh at that. “Oh, that. I’m done with all that. I’m finished with it.”

 

Bixby shakes his head. “That’s not how they’ll want you to answer. When someone asks what your name is, they simply want you to tell them your name.”

“But why? What business is it of theirs? Who is this person?” Morse says, sounding more and more irritated that Bixby won’t leave him to sleep.

“I don’t know,” Bixby says. He hesitates, then admits, “Some psychologist.”

Morse laughs. “A psychologist? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Bixby says. “Just to make sure there’s no lasting damage, I suppose.”

“A psychologist is going to come in here, and you think I can prove that my brains aren’t addled by telling him my name is Endeavour? I don’t know where you went to school, but it certainly wasn’t Stamford in Lincolnshire.”

Thursday chuckles a bit at this. Morse is all right. The lad does have a point, there.

Bixby cuts him a look.  

Thursday shrugs in apology. “I don’t know how you think you’ll get him out of here. I doubt he can stand. Morse is all right. Just let him have a chance to catch his breath.”

Bixby grimaces, then looks thoughtful for a moment, as if he’s trying to decide whether it might be better to let Morse talk to whoever is coming in after all, rather than risk having him collapse out in the foyer and be caught at trying to smuggle him out.

 In the meanwhile, Morse looks for all the world as though he has fallen asleep again. His mouth is slightly open and he’s breathing evenly. It’s clear that the only way Bix is going to get him out is to carry him out, and that’s bound to get them all sorts of unwelcome attention.

“Endeavour?” Bixby asks. And then more sharply, “Endeavour.”

“Hmmmmmmmm?’

“That _is_ what they’ll want you to say. So, when they say, “What’s your name?’ all you are supposed to say is . . .”

“Endeavour Morse,” he replies, his eyes still closed.

Bixby raises his eyebrows and looks impressed that he’s said his name. Christ. You would think he’d have a little more faith in the lad than that.

Bixby pauses.

“Who’s the prime minister of England?”

Morse scowls. “You know I don’t care about politics.”

Bix makes a sharp, buzzing sound, one that might go off at a game show in response to a wrong answer.  “Just a simple answer. Deavour?”

“Hmmmm? Oh, it’s Wilson.”

Bixby makes the buzzing noise again. “You’re about a month and a half behind the times. It’s Heath.”

“Oh. But what does that matter?” Morse says. “People may change, but things never do.”

 “They aren’t coming in here to have a philosophical discussion about the nature of politics,” Bixby says, clearly losing his patience.

  
Morse opens his eyes, looking haughty and more annoyed by the minute that Bixby won’t let him sleep. “I should say not, if it’s a psychologist,” he says. “I mean, what sort of discipline is that, anyway? Can you honestly call it a science? Have you ever read Freud? What rot.”

 

Bixby goes still at this. “But you wouldn’t tell the psychologist that, now, would you?”

 

Thursday snorts a bit at this. Well, of course he would.

 

“Of course, I would,” Morse says. “Why not? They are the ones who are cracked if you ask me. They’re all just as debauched as that Mrs. Pettybon. Can’t get their minds out of the gutter.”

It happens in an instant. Bixby’s eternally tanned and relaxed face flushes to red. “That _is it_ ,” he snaps.  “Get up.” Without warning, he takes Morse firmly by one shoulder and jerks him upright. Morse lets out a cry of surprise.

“Hey now,” Thursday says.

“But why?” Morse asks.

“Because you can’t tell these people something like that. You’re just going to antagonize them. Now, get up now,” Bixby says.

“Why shouldn’t I say that?” Morse says. “It’s the truth.”

“Yes,” Bixby says, trying to hold Morse upright with one hand while ducking down to look under the bed. “It very may well be. But this isn’t the occasion for it.”

 “Well, what _is_ the occasion for the truth, then?” Morse asks, starting to sink back down. But Bixby is still holding his arm and yanks him upright again.

“Don’t,” Morse protests, putting a hand to his head.

“Where the hell did they put your shoes?” Bix says.

“I don’t know. But I can’t. Everything is spinning. Why are you so angry?”

“You’re being difficult on purpose. This is not the time.”  

“I’m not. I  . . .” And Morse must be telling the truth, because he makes a sick groaning sound and his eyes begin to roll back in his head. Bix catches him as he starts slumping sideways again.

 “Christ, son. I don’t think he’s doing this deliberately,” Thursday says.  Morse can be a wiseacre, but the strange, unfocused look in his eyes leads Thursday to conclude that he’s still got whatever the hell that concoction was running through his system.

If Bix had seen the state of Nick Wilding, perhaps he would give Morse the benefit of the doubt. Be grateful, even, that at least he’s talking.

But Bixby is having none of it. He seizes Morse by the shoulders and sits him up again. “Sit up,” he commands. “ _Sit up.”_

Morse’s eyes open as he’s pulled up with a jolt, but he’s gone white. He puts a hand over his mouth and swallows as if he’s about to be sick.

Thursday grabs a bin by the chair, but Morse shakes his head slightly. Bixby, realizing what’s happening, looks up fearfully—he’s in the direct line of fire. But then, Morse lowers his hand and shakes his head again.

“It’s all right,” Morse slurs. “I just felt . . .”

 

Bixby waits until it’s clear the danger has passed, and then, keeping Morse propped up with one hand around his upper arm, ducks down to resume rummaging under the bed, trying to reach for a white paper bag underneath with his free hand.

 _“Shit,_ ” Bixby hisses.

Thursday blinks. It’s odd to hear him curse so. The man has always spoken so measuredly, remained so well-mannered, even in a crisis. And something shifts in his voice on that single syllable, too; his accent goes flatter, the vowel more drawn out.

He manages to snatch the bag and opens it, pulling out Morse’s crumpled white shirt. The medics have left Morse in his vest and trousers, so all he needs to be ready to go are his shirt and shoes.

 Bixby stands back up, and, stringing one of Morse's lanky arms through a sleeve, begins dressing him like a rag doll.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Morse says.

But Bixby is already kneeling by the bed, shoving on his shoes. Then, he takes a look up at him, surveying his work.

He nods, as if the thinks Morse passes muster.  

“Stand up,” he says, taking his upper arm and pulling. Morse just blinks at him. “Stand up,” Bixby repeats.

 

Footsteps stride by outside the room, and Bixby freezes, listening. Then they pass by, and he lets out a sigh of relief.

“Endeavour,” he says. “You can either stay here and have someone badger you worse than I’m annoying you now, or you can go back to the Thursdays' and go back to sleep. What do you want to do?”

Morse blinks slowly. “I want to go to the Thursdays'.”

“All right, then.” Bixby pulls again, and this time Morse slides down off of the bed and rises to his feet. He stands wobbling for a moment, as if he’s surprised the world looks different from a different height.

Bixby takes his jacket off and puts it on Morse, pulling his arms through the sleeves one at a time. Then he loops one of his arms under the jacket and around Morse’s waist, keeping him steady and prompting him to move along.  

“So we’re going to the Thursdays', then?” Morse asks, his voice drifting off again.  

Bix turns to Thursday at this, the question clear in his eyes.

“All right,” Thursday says.  “But on one condition.”

 

********

 

“A _pathologist!_?” cries a voice coming from somewhere at the top of the stairs. It’s followed by a woman’s low murmur, calming and coaxing.

 

Oh joy.

 

Thursday had just begun to lead DeBryn up the stairs, and now he stops and looks back at him, an uncharacteristically apologetic and uncertain expression on his face.

 

Yes, he certainly heard that.

 

It’s only because Thursday has asked him personally that he’s here at all. He’s been on this merry-go-round with Morse before, after all. It’s always the same story: He gives his advice. Morse blithely ignores it.

At the top of the stairs, Thursday leads him down a narrow hall, where a bedroom door opens. It’s Mrs. Thursday, looking thoroughly nonplussed, despite dealing with whom DeBryn can only suppose must be two thoroughly difficult people.

“I’ll just run down and start some tea,” she says, as she’s leaving the room. She nods to him as she makes her way briskly down the hall.

DeBryn follows Thursday into the small bedroom. By the window, a man with dark hair and dark eyes is standing, arms crossed. DeBryn recognizes him as the owner of the house out in Oxfordshire where he had been sent out to attend Henry Winter’s body three years ago.

He had seen him since in the newspapers, in an occasional photo—he and Morse getting into a car or walking down a flight of steps, leaving some gala or another, always close enough together to raise conjecture, but never close enough to remove all doubt.

Morse, meanwhile, is in bed, wearing a green t-shirt and propped up on pillows; his hair is disheveled, spiraling off in all directions like an underwater plant. When DeBryn comes in, Morse opens his eyes and looks at him steadily enough, but his face is oddly blank, his usually intensely blue eyes turned dark, his pupils dilated.

 

So, the concoction given to him by the young woman who had since been arrested for the deaths of Barry Finch and the Reverend Golightly was still, evidently, coursing through his veins.

“Hello, Morse,” DeBryn says.

“Hello, Max,” Morse replies.

 

It takes only those three syllables to confirm it. From the airy way in which he said the words, to his focus, which seems to be somewhere over DeBryn’s left shoulder, it was clear he was coasting on the downturn of whatever wave he’d been riding.

“How are we feeling, then?” he asks. He approaches Morse and reaches down to check his pulse, but Morse snatches his hand away.

“I was merely endeavouring to take your pulse, Morse,” DeBryn says.

Morse looks at him suspiciously. Perhaps, DeBryn concedes, that was not the best word choice.

After a moment of consideration and a glance at Bixby, who nods grimly, Morse holds his hand back out; DeBryn can feel him stiffen as he takes his wrist.

 

Well, if the man wants to refuse medical care, he’s certainly not going to hold a gun to his head, for God’s sake. He’s stitched the man up twice, but if he wants to be this difficult, then DeBryn will be on his way.

“They said if I came here, I could go to sleep. But everyone keeps trying to talk to me,” Morse says, by way, DeBryn supposes, of apology.

DeBryn just nods. He’s focusing on timing Morse’s pulse, which is fluctuating wildly. . . it’s at once both weak and erratic.

An image of Barry Finch, dead of heart failure, floats into DeBryn’s mind. He reaches into his bag for a stethoscope. Best to get the full picture. He pulls up Morse’s t-shirt in as perfunctory a manner as possible, and Morse makes a hum of disapproval, begins to pull away; but then he takes a breath and goes still.

 

As he listens, DeBryn can’t help but take a quick professional assessment. The scar just above the elastic waistband of Morse's pajama pants is oddly familiar. It’s healed quite nicely, faded over the years to a thin white line.

He still has that too narrow waist—but his ribs aren’t as severely visible as they once had been. DeBryn used to wonder if Morse was prone to faintness due to low blood pressure, as he had been so underweight. But now, DeBryn feels he would put him within the range of what would be considered healthy for his height and build.

 

His heart rate however, is worrying—racing and plunging unevenly.

 

DeBryn moves on to checking the reaction of Morse’s pupils with a penlight.

“I don’t like this,” Morse says unhappily, looking away.

 

Well, he hasn’t had the benefit of seeing the lab reports on Morse, but one thing is certain.

 

“He should be in hospital,” DeBryn says.

“Bix said I didn’t have to go back there,” Morse says, matter-of-factly.

“Oh?” DeBryn asks. “And is “Bix” a doctor?”

Morse takes a few seconds longer to answer than one might expect. “No,” he says at last.

“I can’t take him back there, now,” Bixby says, clearly exasperated. Then, as if by saying the words he has the power to make them true, he says, “He’ll be fine. “I’ll take him home tomorrow. He’ll be fine when he’s back at a place where he knows.”

 

“No hold on, a second,” Thursday says. “We had a deal . . . If Dr. DeBryn said . . .

Bixby waves a hand, as if that’s none of his concern. “You knew full well I’d renege on that if necessary.”

“Home?” DeBryn asks. The man can’t possibly mean France. “How on earth are you going to get him through the airport? Onto a plane?”

“I’m not a parcel,” Morse says.

“But he wants to go. He’ll be fine by tomorrow. He knows what’s best for him. He _wants_ to go home. Don’t you Endeavour?”

“Yes,” Morse says, emphatically.

 

Max takes a breath and counts to five. Suddenly, he feels he has a glimmer of understanding as to how someone as unassuming Morse could have taken it upon himself to rummage amongst his potted plants to find his spare key, and then to have waltzed on into his house uninvited.

He’d been living for years with a man who seemed hell-bent on catering to his every whim.

Rather than condemning the man’s choice of a romantic partner, it occurs to DeBryn that society should thank its lucky stars that Joss Bixby has found someone with whom it would be impossible for him to procreate. One can only imagine what monsters the children of such a man might prove to be.

 

DeBryn takes a steadying breath. “It’s not a question of what he _‘wants.’_ It’s a question of what’s feasible. It’s been, what, about four hours since he’s been dosed? The drugs are still running through his system. There’s a chance of heart irregularities, flashbacks . . .”

“That’s it,” Thursday says. “This is still my house. He’s going back.”

“Noooo,” Morse wails. “I can’t! You said if I came with you I could go back to sleep. I have so much to do tomorrow. I’ll be in such trouble. Oh, God.” He puts a hand to his forehead as if to still whatever is circling in his mind.

DeBryn frowns. What more trouble could Morse have possibly gotten himself into beyond being drugged insensate? He looks to the others, but Bixby and Thursday seem equally confused.

“What do you mean?” Bixby asks, laughing uncertainly. “You’re not in any “trouble.”

“It’s just,” Morse says, looking before him in that eerily unfocused way.  “I have quite a lot to do for Turner, that’s all. I have to get some things into him before the fourteenth.”

Bixby laughs. “But you were finished, you said. And then you got those poems back from The Wildwood, right? You said Nick had taken them and given them back?”

“No,” Morse says.

“But you said . . . . “

“Nick gave them back, yes. But I don’t think it was he who took them. I think maybe it was Christopher Clark.”

Bixby wavers his head from side to side as if it’s all one to him. “But you got them back, right?”

“Yes,” Morse says vaguely. “I got them back.”

An odd look crosses Bixby’s face, as if a thought has just occurred to him. “Well, where are they?”

Morse stares blankly before him.

“Deavour?” Where are they?”

“I’d rather not say.”

 “Well did you lose them?

“No, I didn’t _lose_ them. I told you, they were stolen. They were off with those people and I just didn’t . . . I just didn’t want them anymore. I just wanted to let them go.”

“What rot is this? What was wrong with them? _You_ were stolen, and I didn’t feel that way about you.”

Morse says nothing.

“So, what did you do with them?” Bixby persists.

“Oh, what does it matter?” Morse says, burying his face in his hands. Then he jumps, his eyes blown and wide. “The car!” gasps. He looks at Thursday almost fearfully. God only knows what that could be about.

“Strange is sort of smoothing that over,” Thursday says quietly.

Morse swallows and blinks as if his eyes are welling up with tears. He puts his face in his hands and groans.

“It’s all right,” Thursday says. “You just weren’t yourself.”

“I think I was rather too much myself,” he says.

“What’s this about a car?” Bixby asks Thursday.

 

Thursday grimaces. “He took one of the Jags out to Maplewick Hall. But we can sort that out. Given the circumstances.”

Bixby raises his eyebrows, looking vaguely alarmed. And no wonder. For once, he and Joss Bixby are thinking along the same lines. If Morse took the car out to Maplewick Hall, he would have done so _before_ he had been drugged, hadn’t he?

 

Morse chances a look at Bixby, sees that realization there all too well, and then puts his face back into his hands. “Oh, God,” he moans. “Oh, God, I need a beer.”

Bixby looks at him uncertainly. “All right,” he says. “Hell, I could use one, too. I’ll go ask Mrs. Thursday.”  

 

DeBryn can scarcely remember the last time his patience was tried this severely. The man starts heading for the door, as if he’s actually thinking of getting Morse a beer.

“You can’t possibly be serious,” DeBryn says. “He can’t have a beer now.”

Morse groans in despair at those words, and Bixby glances at him and then looks back to DeBryn. “Jesus. He’s been through the ringer. Can’t he at least have a beer?”

“You asked for my recommendation. And I gave it. He really ought to be under medical supervision for twenty-four hours. And, at the very least, he certainly shouldn’t have any alcohol. It sounds as if the concoction he was dosed with was some sort of cocktail. It’s impossible to be sure how his nervous system might react. And considering what happened to Barry Finch . . .

Thursday’s jaw goes tight. “I don’t like this,” he says, his voice low. “He goes back right now. . . “

“I _can’t_ ,” Morse says, his face still buried in his hands. Then he leans back against the pillows and looks blankly at the wall. “I can’t do this,” he says, quietly to himself. “I can’t. I’m so tired, I wish I were dead.”  

 

Bixby turns to DeBryn, “Can I talk to you for a moment, doctor?”

Oh, he’s “doctor” now that the man clearly wants him to go along with him, is he? Not “a _pathologist!_?”

“That’s not going to work again, Bix,” Thursday rumbles.

 

“Just two minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

DeBryn blinks at him coldly. “Very well then,” he says.

Thursday rises as if to come with them, but DeBryn feels perfectly equal to dealing with the pompous fellow on his own.

“The main thing Morse needs right now is a quiet, calm environment and someone to stay with him,” DeBryn says, nodding meaningfully to Thursday.

For some reason, Thursday looks a bit stricken by that. “No,” Morse says, his voice drifting off. “I’m not Nick Wilding. I don’t need .... that. I’m talking .... and you can hear . . . .”

Just then, Morse seems to go limp against the pillows, as if he's given up on talking to all of them for a while. Thursday looks over at Morse and then returns DeBryn’s nod, settling himself down into a chair by the window.  

 

As soon as they are out in the hall, Bixby rounds on DeBryn.

 

 Well, if he thinks he’s about to be intimidated, Joss Bixby is about to find otherwise.

 

“Look,” he says “Endeavour’s awfully fond of the old man. And I am, too, for that matter. He helped me out with a spot of trouble I had last spring, and for that, I’ll always be in his debt.”

 

DeBryn supposes he ought to unhear that right now. God only knows what legal mess Thursday might have helped the chap out with, all out of loyalty to Morse, no doubt.  

 

“But one way or another, we’re leaving here tomorrow, and I’d rather not do so on bad terms with the Thursdays. So how much will it be, just to say . . .”

 

DeBryn looks at him coldly and raises himself to his full height. It may not measure up to Mr. Bixby’s, but it’s certainly enough to make his point . . . .

 

“I’m not about to be bribed, so you can put your wallet away right now and save yourself the trouble,” he says, waspishly.  

Bixby grimaces. “All right, all right,” he says, a conciliatory note in his voice. "You certainly can't blame a fellow for trying, can you, old man?" 

 

What is driving this man so?  Why on earth does the man feel he needs to be so in charge of the situation, controlling where Morse goes and doesn’t go?

 

“What is it you are so afraid of?” DeBryn asks “It’s not down to you to make these sorts of decisions for Morse. You aren’t his  _father_ , for God’s sakes.”

Bixby goes still at this. “No,” he concedes. “I’m not.”

“Well, then,” DeBryn says.

“But I might as well be. And he’s mine. You don't think he doesn't look out for me? He’s my father and my son and my brother and my best friend and all of my family.”

DeBryn blinks, surprised by the man’s sudden vehemence.

“I don’t know you. And maybe this disgusts you, but I don’t care. The fact is, he’s my lover. And, I know he’s a bit . . . quirky . . . but he’s as clever as they come, .  .”  . . . he pauses, as if he’s sizing DeBryn up, wondering how much further to trust him after making what he apparently feels is a revelation.

Bixby takes a deep breath.  “At the hospital, they wanted some psychologist to evaluate him. Even if he gives them straight answers, which he may or may not, he thinks, quite frankly, that the whole lot of them are charlatans. If he’s forced to talk to some prig who is easily offended, I could really see . . . The fact is I’m not his next of kin, obviously. That would most likely be his stepmother. And if you think I’ve come all this way just to let some hateful old woman in Lincolnshire lock up the one I love in some third-rate institution while she cashes in on his royalty checks, well,” he says, with a rueful laugh, “I’m afraid you don’t know me that well, old man.”

DeBryn pauses, considering this. 

“So it looks as if his fate is in your hands: you either give him the green light to come along with me, or let Thursday take him back to the hospital, where he'll get evaluated and possibly sent off to his stepmother. He can come home, or risk being sent off to some bedlam where you and I both know he doesn’t really belong.”

DeBryn snorts a bit at this. Surely he's exaggerating the situation. “For heaven’s sakes man,” DeBryn says. “Does it not occur to you that perhaps he _should_ be evaluated? What can it hurt? If you honestly think that. . . “

But Bixby cuts him off. “It’s not . . It’s just . . . . you don’t know what he’s like,” he says defensively. “He has such a way of putting people’s backs up.”

 

 DeBryn has to stifle a bemused laugh at that: he knows that all too well.

 

But Bixby is already moving on to a new tactic. “Do you know what he said to me, when I told him a psychologist was coming to speak with him?”

“I can’t imagine,” DeBryn says, although he is already imaging just what Morse might say.

 _“Have you ever read Freud? What rot,_ ” Bixby says. And with those words, the man’s whole expression changes— his voice goes from rich and warm to low and mournful, with a telltale trace of the North. He really is an astounding mimic. “ _They are the ones who are cracked if you ask me,”_ he continues. “ _They’re all just as debauched as that Mrs. Pettybon. Can’t get their minds out of the gutter.”_

“Now, you tell me,” the man says in his own voice, “what’s going to happen if he gets some bureaucratic staff shrink who takes offense at that? Endeavour just says whatever the hell he’s thinking—he won’t realize that these people have actual power over him, that sometimes you have to just play the game.”

DeBryn considers this.

Joss Bixby is certainly boorish, but it’s true, nonetheless, that Morse, in the years he has been living with him, seems to have lost that stray cat look he once had. In a fairer world, it wouldn’t come down to a choice—in a fairer world, Morse could have stayed in the hospital without risking separation from the person he’s obviously chosen to spend his life with.

 

And, although Bixby obviously has no idea, DeBryn knows just as well as he does that, fair or not, it’s the world they have to live with.

 

DeBryn turns and goes back into the bedroom, where Morse seems to have finally obtained his goal of going to sleep. He’s breathing slowly and evenly—not a bad sign. DeBryn walks up to the bed and quietly lifts his wrist—now that he’s at rest, his pulse does seem a bit steadier.

“Well,” DeBryn says. “Best to let the fellow sleep, then. Someone should stay with him, though,” he qualifies. “If there’s any signs of cardiac distress, call for an ambulance.”

A muscle in Thursday’s jaw jumps, but Bixby smiles evenly. “I’ll do it,” Bixby says. “Thank you, doctor.”

 

“Good-bye then, Morse,” DeBryn says, gathering his bag and crossing the room. And then he quietly closes the door.

 

***

Endeavour opens his eyes. The world is white with clear morning light, streaming through the room’s small window. In front of him, is his own hand on the pillow, threaded through Bix’s. He blinks for a moment, and the room falls into focus. He looks up to where Bixby is sitting beside him, fully dressed, leaning against the headboard, his head fallen off to the side as he sleeps.

Endeavour sits up slowly. Why has he fallen asleep like that? It looks a bit painful. He reaches forward and puts a hand to his tanned face, rough with dark stubble, and tries to adjust it to a less uncomfortable looking angle.

Bixby stirs, and his dark eyes slide open. He looks at Endeavour for a moment in confusion, scrutinizing his face.

“You’re all right,” he says.

“Yes,” Endeavour says uncertainly.

“I mean, you’re really all right.” He sounds a bit more delighted than Endeavour feels the circumstances warrant.

“Ye . . . “ he begins. And then it all comes back in a flash.

_The Pagans and Morses and Endeavours who flew apart into shards of rain and diamonds, the door that wouldn’t open, the terrible people who came to drag him away from the door, looking at a ceiling and then another ceiling and corned beef and lemonade and what’s your name and I’m finished with all of that and what’s your name and Endeavour Morse._

Endeavour puts a hand to his forehead and groans.

“That was bloody awful,” Endeavour says.  

“But do you feel all right? You look . . . all right.”

“Yes. It’s just. I don’t know if I remember it all. Or if I remember it right.”

 

_And why wouldn’t you open the door and Ah well I didn’t hear you. But that’s not right. Was there ever a door? Well, of course, there’s a door._

 

“Well, no matter. It’s probably just as well,” Bixby says. “By this time tomorrow we’ll be home.”

 "Did you have the chance to get tickets?”

“One o’clock,” Bixby says.

Endeavour can scarcely believe it. He’ll leave Oxford, and this time, he’ll never come back. No good ever befalls him in this city.

He loves the place, but it, most assuredly, does not love him.

******

Downstairs, Endeavour feels a bit strange leaving the Thursdays, a bit sheepish. He remembers all too well how he used to stand uncertain at the front door, how agonizing it was when Mrs. Thursday insisted that he come inside to wait. Now, he had plunged through their lives like a hurricane. And did Thursday get in much trouble over the bag? Over the car? He hopes not. Was it all right, what he did, looking for Joan? Has it made them all happier? 

Perhaps it hadn’t been his place; he had never gone through that breaking-away phase that Joan had to navigate. But it did seem paradoxical. Showing how adult you were by running away like a child, without a word. More like a temper tantrum than firm stand. 

But he had done the same thing, after all, Joan had said. Who was he to tell Joan to call them, to come back?

Maybe you do have to stand alone for a while, just to show yourself that you can.

But no. You don’t throw people away. She has some people who will always love her. And how fortunate is that? What happy accident brings that sort of love? The kind that weaves like a thread of continuity through all that befalls you… And he had tried with his father and then he had dropped from a window sill in Lincolnshire and that was that. And he had tried with Susan and then he got on the bus to basic training, and that was that . . .

 

There are so many things that he wants to tell the Thursdays, but he can’t speak. Is he Nick Wilding? But it’s all right, because Mrs. Thursday hugs him and says, “Now you take care, love,” and Thursday nods at him and the old warmth is there in his dark eyes and he says, “Mind how you go,” as if he is only going back to one of his old bedsits, not far away to France.

And then there is something Endeavour remembers that he wants to say. “Tell Strange thank you for me, won’t you?” Endeavour says. “And Dr. DeBryn? I suspect I was a lot of trouble . . .”

“You can tell them yourself, next time you’re over,” Thursday says with a bracing smile.

And Endeavour knows he should say, “of course,” but he can’t manage it. No, he knows that he’ll never come here again. So he simply nods and follows Bixby out into the heavy, cloudy day.

**********

On the drive to London, rain begins to fall, plop, plop and then patters in a riot on the windshield. The man pushes a button on the dashboard and the top comes up, and the sky disappears.

The wipers make a sound like the wind, like they’re whispering. Endeavour can’t understand what they are trying to tell him.

Swish-dop

Swish-dop

Yet Each

 Man Kills

 the Thing

 He Loves.

 

_“My God, you were carrying on as though I had killed you,” Bixby said._

And he had killed Pagan that day. 

Until then, Pagan had thought that love was something that swooped in, out of nowhere, and made everything right. And it _was_ that. But what he hadn’t known until then was that love was also a conscious decision.

It was there, lying on the floor, that Pagan gave up being Pagan. If anyone else had stolen his notebook and sent it to a publisher, he would never have spoken to them again. But, in that moment, he decided to forgive Bixby. To, finally, let down his guard.

 

But it was Pagan Bixby had fallen in love with, wasn’t it? Pagan who didn’t give a damn whether he had lived or died. Pagan, who Bix never would have dared to look at like that.

 

At Jean and Shantel’s wedding, the man had looked so lonely sitting at a table at the edge of the party. Just as he had looked on that day they were all out by the Lake in Oxfordshire, when Pagan had pulled him into the water. As soon as Shantel’s mother went up to the house and let him and the other ushers off the hook, he had gone to sit with him.

“May I have this dance?” he said. He thought Bix would laugh, but he said “Are you mad?”, and Endeavour felt a lump in his throat.

But Endeavour had been fairly drunk, and so he just laughed, and said “So they say,” and, undaunted, he pulled Bix to his feet, even though he, Endeavour, really couldn’t dance.

But Bix, it turned out, could. And he whirled Endeavour around and the stars whirled around above them as if they were shooting stars, as if they were travelling in circles, and Endeavour leaned forward and thought, I’ll say it. “I love you.”

But then, the man made a turn, and Endeavour stumbled. Endeavour let himself go limp, followed along, and then they were gliding again.

“This isn’t so terrible now, is it?” Endeavour said.

But the man only hummed, as if perhaps maybe it was. And Endeavour leaned forward again, but the man’s face was unreadable. He almost seemed frightened of what Endeavour might do next. “I love you,” he wanted to say, but the man looked like he wouldn’t want to hear it. The man always worried so about keeping up the mask, about looking the right way and saying the right thing; Endeavour could tell he felt like an idiot dancing with him, even though everyone left at the party was drunk and nobody cared.

 

So, he tried to make light of it all, the way the man always did, and he said, “On a night like this, anything is possible.”

And then Endeavour laughed because he still believed that, what Bixby said.

But maybe that was all wrong, after all. 

 

When do you lie? When do you tell the truth?

 

_“Why shouldn’t I say that?” Endeavour said. “It’s the truth.”_

_“This isn’t the occasion for the truth,” Bixby said._

 

The man hisses under his breath and blasts the horn. There are streams of cars all heading down into one road and that’s just how life is, isn’t it? Everyone trying to make their way along and sometimes it feels that there might not be room for you, but everyone wants a place. That's all anyone wants. And you can let people merge or blare the horn but so often it seems that everyone blares the horn. Why do they do that? It’s so loud. Endeavour wishes they would stop.

“Do you still have those sunglasses?” Endeavour asks.

“I think they’re in my carry-on,” the man says, looking ahead at the road.

“Can I have them?”

“Sure. Why? It’s raining. Is anyone looking at you?” The man looks around into the windows of the neighboring cars that are trapped in the traffic snarl with them. 

But Endeavour is busy unzipping pockets.

Looking at me? They’re always always looking… but with the sunglasses on everyone seems far away. And the blaring horns sound as if they are coming from further away, too. More muted. If you close your eyes, and really try, you can imagine they are geese on an autumn evening and they are all flying straight as an arrow across a reddening sky.

 

****

He just has to not look at the lights. He looks at the wheels of the suitcase rolling to the front and to the right of him.

A disembodied voice, hovers in the air like fog. . . A _ir France Flight 443 now boarding at gate E33._

“Damn it,” the man says. “They changed the goddamn gate.”

Then the voice is saying something else. _That’s right, lad._

Endeavour stops to listen to it. By the time he looks around, he realizes that the dark-haired man is gone.

 

Oh, he’s just a few more steps ahead. Endeavour turns and walks on, but his suitcase feels heavy, as if it’s filled with stones. Or maybe it’s filled with diamonds like the ones the fell though the sky at the house that wasn’t his house.

  
He slows and he’s tired and he wishes he could . . .

The dark-haired man stops. “Would you just . . . “ he begins, and he grabs the handle of his suitcase from his hand and starts dragging it along with his, even though it sends them crashing and thumping together. “Would you come on, didn’t you hear?”

 

“I’m not going,” Endeavour says.

“What?” the man says.

And as soon as he says it, he knows that it’s true. His whole mistake has been seeing Endeavour and Morse and Pagan and Morse and Pagan and Endeavour as a line, when it’s all been circular; he makes the same mistakes over and over. _It’s all been one long suicide, hasn’t it Devvy? Susan said._

 

And now he's following the man like he did before, and they’ll go back to the house in Lorraine, and he’ll never, ever leave it. And he thinks he’ll be happy. But then the man will look at him like that, and the man won’t be happy, and when that happens, Endeavour’s heart will finally break. It will break and fall like the shards of rain and diamonds that fell from that house that wasn't his house.

And even the house that was his house isn’t safe anymore, is it? Look what had followed him there. If Endeavour had his way, they would go home and just never open the door. But Bixby is always so curious, so hopeful. He’ll always want to open the door to anyone, just to see what they might be proposing.

He’ll open the door to anyone and Endeavour will go upstairs. And he’ll open the door to anyone who comes up the walk. He'll open the door to anyone, but not to him.

 _"Why wouldn't you open the door?"_  There’s no possible way that he hadn’t had heard him. He had been shouting and shouting and . . .

And . . . he wishes everything could go back to the days before that, that they could go all the way back to the lake house, to the time when the man still thought Pagan was salvageable, when he and Pagan rode home from London with the wind in their faces and Pagan sang and the man said, “you sound pretty good,” and no one had thought he was pretty good before; most people knew he was a disaster.  

 

“I’m not going,” Endeavour says again.

“What do you mean, you aren’t going?” The man laughs, as if Endeavour is playing some sort of game.

“I don’t know. I’m just not going,” Endeavour says.

The man pauses, his eyes looking steadily into his, as though he’s trying to decipher something. “What are you saying?”

“I just can’t . . . I’m not going. I’m not going back to France.”

The man shakes his head, his eyes still searching for something in his. What are they looking for? And then the man goes still. 

“You really mean this," he says. "This is really happening, then. I knew you would . . . but here? Now? You’re leaving me in the middle of the Heathrow airport?”

“No, I . . .”  How to explain? He didn’t want to leave him. He wanted to figure out how to get back to him. To how they were when the man thought that he loved him. “I’m just not going.”

 “I knew it. You're really doing this.”

Endeavour says nothing.

“Well. That’s fine, then. You'll at least send me a postcard now and then, yes? Let me know how you're getting on?”

“If you’d like,” Endeavour says.

“I was _being sarcastic_ ,” the man says.

And Endeavour wants to show him that he doesn’t mean that he’s going—he just means that he’s not going—but he can’t find the words. So he takes his shoulders and reaches up and kisses him, his mouth warm and pliant against the man’s full, closed one and he tries to put all the things he wants to say into the kiss, but he must have been mistaken because the man is pulling back and changing the slide of their mouths and turning it into a kiss goodbye, and he did not mean it to be a kiss goodbye.

And then the man takes him roughly by the arms and shoves him away, leaving Endeavour stunned for a moment. How did he get here? Why is the man so angry?   

“Are you mad?” the man says. “We’re in the middle of the Heathrow International Airport, not at some provincial wedding at three in the morning!”

And there.

And he’s said it.

And not just in jest. This time, he finally means it. And Endeavour thought it would be the most terrible thing in the world, but it’s almost a relief somehow, just to be out with it. _Are you mad?_ Because he wasn’t some madcap bohemian he was damaged goods through and through and the only way to live was to accept it and . . .

And Endeavour whips around and he’s striding away and there are so many people and lights and the rumble of too many voices and then that voice from nowhere Air France flight 433 now boarding and he’s not going and there’s a door and there’s the muted light of a rainy day, but it’s light and the doors spring open for him like magic. And why wouldn’t Bixby open the door and of course he could hear him. But these doors _do_ open, panels of glass flying off to the sides right before him, parting like water, and then he’s running and his feet splash through puddles and cars are roaring at him, shouting at him and why is the world always so angry? And he keeps running and the gray gives way to green and he’s running in the woods and Dionysus is screaming and he falls into the grass and the world spins and spins and . . . .

He looks down at his hands. He’s clutching them together as if he has to hold on to something. And his hands hurt like hell. He puts them to his head. And tries to catch his breath.

And slowly the world settles.

He’s under a tree. He’s in a park. He’s in London. His name is Endeavour Morse. And he’s been a failed son and a failed student and a failed radioman and a failed police officer and a failed poet and a failed lover twice over.

He wasn’t sure if he had the strength to try to fail at something else.

 

He sits up.

He might as well see what he has to work with.

 He looks through his bag. And then his wallet.

He has nothing. Less than nothing, really.  A driver’s license, a library card, three francs, a fir cone, and a five-thousand-franc jacket that he supposes he ought to somehow get dry-cleaned and shipped back to Lorraine.

 

And, suddenly, he realizes: he isn’t mad. He isn’t mad at all.

 

If he were truly mad, he’d be blissfully unaware of how much trouble he’s in right now.

Well.

He’s started over before. There’s nothing else for it but to do it again.

He holds the jacket to his face and takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of aftershave. Maybe he could keep this for just a while. After all, he’d stolen a police car just yesterday. In for a penny, in for a pound.

He puts the jacket back into his bag and his wallet into his pocket.

He has no idea what the exchange rate is. How many pounds he might get at a bank for three francs.

 

But it will have to be enough to start a new life on.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

“If I had meant Tuesday, I would have said Tuesday,” Bixby says quietly, setting the receiver down with a decisive click.

If there was one thing Bixby had absolutely no patience for, it was willful incompetence.

Take these anti-trust hearings he was caught up in, for example. His lawyers couldn’t find some way to free him up from such an utter waste of his time? With the money he was paying these people, one would have imagined that he could have bought a goddamned moon of Saturn.

Monopoly? Of course, it’s a monopoly.

I won. You lost. Fair and square. What could be simpler than that?

 

Well, on the upswing, his enterprises were all doing better than ever. He had that old zing back. That Bixby magic. He went out to Paris, out to Sylvie’s parties, and he could feel it. All the eyes right on him as he walked into the room.

It was ridiculous to believe that he couldn’t live without Endeavour. What did he ever do anyway, but hold him back, try to reel him in from crushing people who wanted crushing so badly?

 “Goodness, you sound ruthless,” Endeavour would say, with a breathless laugh. “Tell me, do you ever listen to yourself when you talk?”

And those elaborate double takes he would do as he came into the hall, right when a business associate who had stopped by with an interesting offer was leaving.

 “My God, who was that?” he would say, eyes wide with disapproval. “He has the face of an absolute criminal.”

 

He didn’t even have the decency to whip up any enthusiasm for the last deal Bix had sealed before they had left for Oxford.

“A shipping firm?” he had asked. “Why did you need that? Don’t you already own seven or eight of those?”

Bixby had been perplexed. All of his previous lovers had been overjoyed at his triumphs; he had always been a generous man, even with the merest of acquaintances, and so they had known that his win was their gain. Sylvie would have had diamonds in her eyes before he had even hung up the phone.

“Well,” Bixby said, “Now I own this one as well,” he said.

“But why?” Endeavour asked. “What’s the point of it all?”

Bixby laughed. If it were anyone from earth he had been speaking to, he would have said, "Now we can buy whatever we want." But what did Endeavour want, anyway? Second-hand records were cheap and fir cones were free. But there _was_ something more to it than that.

“Why, it’s the challenge of the thing," Bixby had tried to explain. "It’s . . .  well, it’s fun, isn’t, it?”

Endeavour had looked at him skeptically. “It doesn’t _seem_ like fun . . . it seems like . . .”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t really understand, I suppose.”

 

Ah. Well. Truer words were never spoken. Of course, he didn’t understand. But what did that matter?

It wasn’t as if he needed to take the advice of a man who didn’t even seem capable of opening his own bank account, now, was it?

 

 

That was during the day. In the night, Bixby dreamt of kingfishers that flashed like fire and dragonflies that left behind trails of blue flame, of snowstorms churning like the mind of God, and of lonely satellites revolving solemnly around Saturn, waiting for the day that someone would see them.

 

He would wake up next to an empty space and a pillow that still smelled of autumn leaves, and he would remember how he had once found Pagan so easily in the woods. And what was the world really, but one large, dark wood?

In the morning, I’ll get up, and I’ll just leave all this behind, he thought. And I won’t look back. I’ll just start walking. I’ll walk and walk, and I’ll look all over hell and half of Georgia until I’ve found him again.

*******

It was more difficult to let Endeavour fade away into just another ghost of his past than he would have imagined. And he would have imagined it to be fairly difficult.            

 

The first obstacle he had to jump was a fairly awkward conversation with Mrs. Thursday, who checked to see “if they had got back all right.” He could almost feel Inspector Thursday humming with annoyance in the background.

He could tell that the Inspector didn’t approve of their leaving so soon after Endeavour had been drugged. But Bixby wasn’t sure how long they could afford to stick around. Honestly, how long was it going to take before it came to the CID’s attention that Endeavour had committed grand theft auto? Of a police vehicle, no less?

 

“I’ll tell Endeavour you said hello when I see him,” Bixby said vaguely.

“What?” Mrs. Thursday laughed. “Well, where is he?”

“Hmmm? Oh, he just had a few things he had to get wrapped up.”

“You mean he’s not there with you?” she asked, confused.

“I’m so, sorry, someone’s at the door. I don’t want to run up the charges. The rates these days are exorbitant, aren’t they? Goodbye now.” 

 

As uncomfortable as the phone call was, it did work to eliminate one theory. Bixby had hoped against hope that perhaps Endeavour had simply gone back to the Thursdays, even though he knew all along that was only a slim possibility. His pride would forbear him returning there after all the tumult they had brought into the Thursdays’ lives.

So, scratch that off the list.

That only left, well, about a million places.

Where did he go, then? Was he all right? He wished he had at least grabbed his suitcase from him before he stormed off.

Well.

It was none of his never mind, he supposed.

****

On the second morning after he had returned, Endeavour was still following him—there he was, right in the newspaper. There had been stories circulating, evidentially, of papers found out in the woods, blowing around near that old lake house in Oxfordshire. They were poems—poems which seemed for all the world to be similar to Endeavour Morse’s. Was this some prankster’s stunt? Were they authentic? A team at Oxford was appointed to study the word usage and syntax, to judge whether or not the mysterious poems were, in fact, genuine Endeavour Morse originals.

 

Three days later, Turner was at the door, with a few papers in his hand.

 “Do you know if these are really his?” he demanded, waving them about.

“I have no idea,” Bixby said. Even though he would have bet half his fortune that they were.

Turner said nothing; the man looked ready to explode. He simply strode right past Bixby, down the hall and into Endeavour’s old study.

Bixby stood in the hall and listened. He could hear Turner crank a piece of paper into the typewriter and type out a few sample sentences. Then, a heavy pause, while he compared the paper he had typed with the one he had acquired, the one that had been found floating about in Oxfordshire.

“Damn,” he heard Turner shout. “Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.”

He came tearing out of the door and back into the hall.

“What the hell did he do that for?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Bixby said.  And this time, he would _not_ have bet half his fortune on venturing on an answer.

“Where the hell is he?” Turner shouted.

“I have no idea,” Bixby said again.

“Shit,” Turner said, stomping out the door.

Such eloquence from a senior editor at one of Europe’s most illustrious publishing houses. Bixby shrugged. It certainly wasn’t any concern of his.

**********************

What to do with all of his things? That was another question. The records he could not bear to touch. Even the annoying fir cones and crosswords, he left in their untidy pile on Endeavour’s side of the bed.

It would have been kinder if Endeavour had at least come back and packed up some of his clothes. That would have been some help, at any rate.

 

One would think that the one uptick in being left by your male lover would be that you doubled your wardrobe, but Endeavour had been built on bit of a slighter scale—not to mention the fact that he tended to be careless with his things. So, Bixby was left with a tumble of scuffed shoes one size too small and a closet full of rumpled jackets cut too tight in the shoulder.

He had no inclination at all to wear any of those ridiculous half-zip jumpers Endeavour so favored, and even his ties didn’t really suit him because he was a dramatic winter and Endeavour was a classic summer.

 

Endeavour had gone as still as a rabbit the first time Bix had mentioned that fact.

“I’m a _what_?” Endeavour had asked.

“A classic summer.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Bixby frowned. Surely, the man had heard of the four major tonal groups.

“It means you look better in blues and whites and should stick with more of a . . .

 

Endeavour’s laugh began with a sputtering sound, a bit like air being let out of a child’s balloon.

He never would have imagined that Pagan, who once stood in an evening suit looking as if he would like to reduce the band to ashes with the mere look of his fierce blue eyes, would be capable of producing such a ludicrous sound.

Then, his laughter grew until he doubled over on the side of the bed—he held his hand to his stomach as if he was in pain with it. “Please,” he managed at last, gasping for air. “Oh, please tell me we aren’t doing this,” he managed. “Oh, please?”

Bix stood by the dresser watching, utterly bemused. “What, old man?” he asked.

But this made him laugh all the harder. “Oh, God,” he breathed. “Please tell me we aren’t becoming such an utter stereotype . . . It’s just so . . . “ Endeavour sputtered, trying to come up with the right word.

“What?” Bixby prompted, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know . . . . poofy?” Endeavour said, then he put his hand over his face and shook anew with laughter.

This, from an Oxford man? One would have imagined he would have been a bit more sophisticated than _that_. But, after all, what could one expect from a man whose favorite ensembles resembled nothing so much as a school uniform?

Bixby turned, and put on his haughtiest Bixby face. “There’s nothing at all “poofy” about taking an interest in one’s appearance . . .  “

“I hope you don’t do that when you are off at a meeting,” Endeavour said. He put on a pompous voice, and said, “‘I say, Thompson, that jacket is all wrong for you . . . don’t you know you’re a . . .

“ . . . and if that’s what you think,” Bixby continued, ignoring him, “it’s no wonder you’ve had the track record with women that you do. I’ve had a bit more success in that department than you, I daresay, so before you go denigrating my habits. . .”

He had thought that would shut Endeavour up, but he’d only laughed all the harder.

“I would say you have, too, since I think I’ve met them all. Or I certainly hope that was all of them anyway.”

Bixby felt a twinge of panic at that. 

“What do you mean? How?”

“They tracked me down, didn’t they? Curious, I expect.” He put the pompous voice back on again. “‘Everybody who ever made a deal made an enemy.’ What rubbish. You’re the only one I know whose got all their previous lovers still attending their parties.”

Oh. That was true, he had noticed quite a few of them turning out. He never would have imagined they would have talked to Endeavour, though, about . . . Well, Christ, what would they have talked to him about? It certainly must have been awkward. “I’m sorry about that, then, old man,” Bix said.

But Endeavour was still laughing, presumably now at whatever stunned expression Bixby must have had on his face.

“It’s not that funny,” Bix said tersely.

“I know,” Endeavour gasped. “I just can’t stop now.” 

Well, let him have his little joke. Bix was finally reduced to picking a pillow up from off the bed and socking him with the thing. But then, Bixby was laughing, too. It was just so incongruous, seeing that once inapproachable creature falling to the floor and laughing like an idiot.

 

It was odd now, to look at that space on the carpet, and to imagine that he had once been right there.

And now he was gone. 

 

 In the end, Bixby left all of it just as it was. It made it easier to pretend that Endeavour had just gone into the village for the day, and that he would be back any minute, chewing doggedly on a pear and heading into the drawing room to put on a record.

****************************

It’s Bixby’s second week back in Lorraine when the first postcard arrives. At first, his heart leaps at the sight of that familiar, small, loopy script. He scans it briefly, hoping it might contain some explanation, maybe even an apology.

 

_Sorry I left you right in the middle of the airport. Can I come home?_

 

Instead, it’s all just some rubbish about birds and wings, and to top it all off, the words are not even written in lines; they are written in a spiraling circle, each concentric ring growing smaller until the end of the sentence. What’s this? Endeavour knows he's no good at these sorts of riddles. 

The only practical information on the thing is his address. It looks as if he’s somewhere in Scotland. Wick. How did he get up there? God only knew.

Well, at least he should send him his passport.

 

Bixby pauses.

 

He hadn’t even trusted him that day to carry his own passport.

 

But no, whatever state he might have been in that day, Bixby knew as sure as he knew his own name that Endeavour had meant just what he had said.

He’ll pop his passport into the afternoon post. He might as well send that fat wad of francs that’s doubtless still upstairs under the mattress, as well. He won’t bother to exchange it. He’ll send it just as it is, so that Endeavour will know that it’s his.

Bixby opens a drawer of his desk and tosses the postcard on top of a sheaf of papers. As he does, he notices a faint glimmer of gold, catching the light amidst some old files. He reaches for it and finds a cold, bright gambling chip, embossed with the letters JB. He tucks it into his pocket.

 

There’s a ring at the door, and, despite the fact that he’s just shut the drawer with the postcard in it with a small twinge of satisfaction, his heart jumps. Could it be?

Although he knows it couldn’t be. He doesn’t have his passport with him, so how could he have gotten here? Although with Endeavour, who knew?

But wouldn’t he just walk in?  It _is_ his house. Or it was.

Perhaps he’s trying to make a point?

 

_Why wouldn’t you open the door?_

 

Bix strides out down the hall, his heart beating against his ribs as he opens the door.

But it’s not Endeavour. It’s Esme and Guillaume, wondering where Endeavour is.

Sometime, when Bixby wasn’t paying attention, Guillaume had shot up past his older sister. Bixby feels suddenly as if he’s been thrown into the past, to a time when he dealt with shadier characters. Esme does all the talking, while Guillaume stands behind her, tall and lanky, arms crossed, like her hired thug.

But what can Bixby say? He hasn’t a clue if Endeavour will come back to St. Brieuc.

They give him a look that suggests that they blame him for Endeavour’s absence. But they’re just kids. If they were a few years older, he’d tell them, look, _he_ left _me_ . . . right in the middle of Heathrow International. What do you want _me_ to do about it?

Finally, after assuring them that Endeavour will certainly be in touch, they leave, giving him one last dark glower as they go, as if he’s driven away the only person in their sad little town who ever understood them.

Which, most likely, Endeavour was.

Poor things.

*****

The next morning, Endeavour is back in the newspapers again. 

Amazingly enough, releasing his poems into the wild— or whatever the hell it was he thought he had been doing that day—slowly seems to begin working to his advantage.

A new article featuring interviews with people who have found some of poems at Lake Silence makes it sound as if Endeavour had some sort of idea in mind when he tossed his work off into the four winds.

 “Endeavour is, like, speaking out against the commodification of language. Poetry shouldn’t be locked up in the ivory tower,” said Mark Adams, the twenty-two-year-old “editor” of an “alternative magazine.’ “It should be, like, allowed to roam free, be available to everyone.”

One Oxford first-year, Sarah Gallagher, claimed that she met Endeavour in the woods. That he was wearing sunglasses, but that she had recognized him and had spoken to him, and that he had given her a poem about the sun setting over water because it “matched her hair.”

Bixby snorts at that. Turner has got to love that. Get all the disciples and look-alikes swooning.

And, of course, predictably enough, Turner gets on this bandwagon right away. “We at Von Haussen Dubret stand behind our artists and any statement they wish to make one hundred percent. It’s not about profits, it’s about the poetry.”

Oh, please.

He wasn’t rattling off any such claptrap when he was stomping around here the other day, Bixby thinks.

What really drives Bix wild is that is seems that Endeavour is becoming known by his first name only, as simply “Endeavour,” much like Ringo or Twiggy. Would Endeavour ever have thought of using that name, if he, Bixby, hadn’t forced him into it? He told him an entire marketing department would be hard pressed to think of a better pen name for a poet, and here it was, right in front of him, his own actual name.

“ _Marketing department?_ ” Endeavour had wailed, as if such a thing belonged in one of those rings of Dante’s Inferno.

Bixby knows Endeavour had no such ideas about “commodification.” He had just done it all on a whim.

 

Bixby closes his eyes, and he can see him perfectly, standing in the woods and tossing the papers into the air, watching them drift like a snowstorm around him, the perfect metaphor for that inscrutable, impossible snowstorm brain.

See, I got them, he says.  Happy now? Now I’ll throw them away and do just whatever the hell I want. Ha!

Then, the imaginary Endeavour turns around and blows him a giant raspberry. 

You drove me to do this, Bixby can imagine him saying.  I told you I didn’t want to come back here.

You drove me away.

Bixby blinks.

Had he? 

Because sometimes, in the night, he wishes he could have a recording of that moment, that moment in which he was thinking about what route to take to get most quickly to the other gate, when it all seemed to happen out of the blue. Had Endeavour said he was leaving him, or was it, he, Bixby, who had said that? 

 “ _This is really happening, then. You’re leaving me in the middle of the Heathrow_ _airport?”_

“ _No_ , _I_ . . . _I’m_ _just_ _not_ _going_.”

What did he mean, then?

Sometimes, Bix would wake with a sharp pain in his chest, and a prickle in the back of his mind that would not allow him to sleep. Because there were other things that he remembered, too.

What had that doctor said? He had been so busy trying to figure out how to get them the hell out of there, that he hadn’t really listened. It had all been a nightmare. And that mess with the car. Thursday had seemed to excuse all of that, as if it weren’t Endeavour‘s fault, seeing as he had been drugged and his judgement impaired.

Were they all that deliberately blind? Hadn’t he taken the car _to_ Maplewick Hall?

But it seemed the doctor had said something . . . about flashbacks? About twenty-four hours of supervision?

And then his heart would still in his chest, as if someone had put a knife right through him.

Had he left Endeavour in the middle of Heathrow International Airport, in some sort of drugged delirium?

But his face had been calm, his eyes clear, and perfectly, painfully blue.

And he’d seen Pagan intoxicated too many times to count. He’s pretty sure he had quite a bit of alcohol in his system the entire first three months of their acquaintance as a matter of fact. And he always managed to maintain a modicum of control, his line held always perfectly in place.

“I’m not going,” he had said. And he had meant it.

****************

No, it was he, Bixby, who had driven him away with his constant contradictions. No wonder Endeavour was perpetually confused.

 

When Bixby had first seen Pagan at the party in Oxfordshire, he thought he had finally found the one he had been looking for.

As Bixby’s wealth grew, people began to speak to him differently. It became impossible to tell who to trust, what was real. Everyone wanted to come to his parties, everyone wanted to stand in the warmth of the light that he cast, but Bixby understood all too well that none of the posh people who flattered him and drank his liquor gave a damn about him. That, quite the contrary, many of them muttered about him darkly behind his back.  

Jealousy is an ugly thing. And nothing breeds jealously like success.

 

“He’s a bloody upstart,” Bruce said.

“He’s all right,” Pagan countered.

 

Pagan was different. He wasn’t afraid to stand alone against the crowd. And Pagan was one hundred percent honest. Almost painfully so.

“It’s a fake. It’s a copy. The real one hangs in the Rijksmuseum. I’ve seen it,” he said. And then with a last cutting look, he drifted back off toward the bar.

And Pagan was beautiful and Pagan was a challenge and . . . 

And Pagan’s greatest hope was that one day he would pass out in the woods and be left there to die. 

 

But Bixby was a man who knew how to wait. And he stood absolutely still. And Pagan circled in closer and closer.

And Bixby had it, he had the magic. He told Pagan, “On a night like this, anything is possible.” And Pagan came to believe it. And Pagan went into the disappearing closet, and then he was Endeavour.

And Bixby grew absolutely addicted to the way Endeavour looked at him, as if he actually was the person he had dreamt of becoming years ago.

 

Even as it was becoming rapidly apparent that the kindest thing to do would be to let him go.

But what was to be done? How could Bixby have known that his good luck would fail him at such a crucial juncture?

 

A con artist walks into a party and falls in love with a police officer. It almost sounds like the opening line of some awful, cosmic joke, doesn’t it?

 

Bixby didn’t believe it for the longest time. When Inspector Thursday came to question him about Bunny Corcoran, he had thought: now is my chance. I’ll tell the man all I know about that set. And then, perhaps, in the process, he’ll end up telling me what he knows. And I’ll find out whether or not such a ridiculous thing can be true.

And, who would have thought?  

It was.

Unbelievable.

But then, he had learned Pagan had been in prison.

So.

Perhaps he had a bit of a colorful past, then? Perhaps he took a bribe here or there, hid a piece of evidence for a friend? He had committed some transgressions somewhere, that much was obvious; perhaps he might be willing to overlook another’s, as well? 

But no. With a sinking feeling in his gut, Bixby learned the case was just the opposite.

Pagan it seemed, was the one person on the planet who managed to end up in prison— not because he had failed to live up to the world’s standards—but because the world had failed to live up to his.

“Got on his high horse one time too many,” Bruce said. “And got knocked the hell off. About time he learned how the world works.”

“He’s too honest to be a police officer,” Kay said. “He was too honest for Oxford, even really.”

 

Pagan, it seemed, was just as pure as the driven snow. He saw everything in black and white. He had no patience whatsoever for those who might take – well, a more circuitous route in life. Well. How nice. 

 

It was a crapshoot. Bix could come clean with Pagan—stand before him plainly and feel he had earned the trust that was slowly being placed in him . . .. and risk him becoming disillusioned, risk having to stand and watch helplessly as he stalked off without a backward glance.

Or, he could just blithely continue on, until eventually the lie would become the truth—until he had been Bixby for more years than he hadn’t been—until all of those little details of his previous life would have the time to simply float off, like boats rocking with the current, borne off ceaselessly where they belonged—into the past.

Bixby chose the safer bet.

And so, Bixby said nothing.

He could have told Endeavour the truth at any time. But he didn’t and he hadn’t.

And Endeavour loved him enough to accept him as he was, and he told himself that it didn’t matter.

But it did, didn’t it?

Well, of course it did.

And it was: Is Joss your real name? I thought so. If you had chosen a name for yourself before you knew better, you might have been tempted to choose something out of a play by Oscar Wilde.

and . . . I don’t recall saying that Faulkner was from Oxford, Mississippi. You certainly seem well versed on the subject . . . and . . . why is this so important to you? Are you sure this is me we’re talking about? Not you?

 

The simple truth was, they had been doomed from the first to end on the same note on which they had begun. Bixby eternally withholding the truth and Endeavour eternally pretending that he didn’t need it.

 

“Do you have everything you need?” Bixby asked. 

“I can’t hear you,” Pagan said.

 “Why wouldn’t you open the door?” Endeavour asked. 

“I didn’t hear you,” Bixby said.

 

********

By the time the fourth postcard arrives, Bixby tells himself that he’s finished thinking about Endeavour. All that winding, meaningless script, written in circles. He never did understand him. He can’t even understand anymore why the hell he came to France with such an obvious fraud in the first place, although there was a time that he was more grateful than words could say that he had.

 No. He’ll never understand him.

*****

He’s in Paris to meet with his overpriced lawyers, when he runs into Sylvie again. He had forgotten how easy she was to talk to, almost like another self. They have lunch in a café, and it’s just like old times again.

“So,” she says, finally, after taking a few lobs at bringing up the topic. “Where’s your weirder half?”

Bixby blinks. He hadn’t imagined that she would have popped out with the question in quite that manner.

“Well,” he says. “As a matter of fact. We’re no longer together.”

“Oh,” she says, raising an eyebrow. Then she shrugs. “Well, that was never going to work. I told you that a long time ago.”

“Hmmmmmm,” Bixby says, not at all keen on encouraging her on the subject.

“You are such an extrovert, and he was positively agoraphobic.”

He knew from the first Sylvie was no great fan of Endeavour. How had she put it? “I don’t get it?” But she needn’t call him . . . whatever it was she called him. . .

“You don’t have to say it like that, my dear,” he says, reprovingly.

“Say what? That he’s agoraphobic?” she laughs. “What’s wrong with that? All that means is that he’s afraid to leave the effing house.”

Bixby pauses. “What’s this? Is that actually a thing, then?”

“Of course,” Sylvie says.   

Bixby isn’t sure what to make of that.  It seems impossible that one word might envelop all the things that were wrong with Endeavour.

 

Wait.

Is that how he thought of him?

And is that how Endeavour thought that he thought of him?

_I know you’re thinking it. You might as well go ahead and say it._

But, of course, he must have known that . . . Surely, he knew that he had chosen him out of the crowd because . . .

Of course he must have. 

“Do you have to rush back?” Sylvie says. “Some friends of mine have gotten some sort of band together. They are playing at the Chat Vert tonight, and I told them I’d look in. Do you want to go with?”

It sounds like the sort of night that Endeavour would describe as being trapped in a ring of Dante’s Inferno.

“I’d love to,” Bixby says.

 

Speaking of Dante—what rubbish, that whole “midway through the journey of our life” thing was. He felt the same as he ever did, just as young and energetic as the day on which he first stepped off that ship. He could tell by the looks that he and Sylvie drew, that he still had it, that Bixby charm.

They walked along the sidewalks, and it seemed natural to take her hand. No one looked at them askance; on the contrary, any glances they did get shone with absolute admiration. They looked pretty damned good together.

She was a tall woman, and in her heels, she came right to Endeavour’s height, just up to his jawline. Her step was decisive and quick so that she was always one step ahead, whereas Endeavour had always sauntered about dreamily one step behind. They measured up just right together. What could be more perfect?

And what could feel more wrong?

 Seeing her in the corner of his eye, right at the height at which he was accustomed to seeing Endeavour, he kept waiting for her to inevitably lag behind, for her long shiny-blue black hair to morph before his eyes into red-gold and wild.

_And blue bleak embers ah my dear, fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion._

And then, just as it feels as if it should be Endeavour who is walking alongside him, he sees them: the large, luminous blue eyes that he had first seen from across the room at the party in Oxfordshire.

His breath catches for a moment, but then he realizes that it's just a picture, a picture on the front of a book cover in a store window.

Oh, God.

Can he be in that much trouble with Turner?

He never would have imagined Endeavour allowing Turner to use such a gormless-looking photograph at all, let alone allowing him to put it right on the cover of his book. In the photo, his hair is ruffled and wavy, and his eyes are wide and shining. He’s breathtakingly beautiful, but he’s also absolutely radiating with the impression that the lights are on, but nobody’s home.

Is he all right? Oh no. No, no, no. He must have been out of his mind that day.

What has he done? He never should have left him there. He never should have gotten on that plane.

But as Bixby draws nearer, he understands why Endeavour is looking so utterly guileless.  The photo is an old one; in it, Endeavour looks to be only about eighteen or nineteen. It was originally black and white, but it has been colorized a bit overdramatically, making his eyes an even more neon, impossible blue. Why would Turner choose such a cover? He must be madder than a hornet with him.

And then he’s right up to the window, close enough to see the words on the book.

  
_Pagan_

_The Unauthorized Biography of Endeavour Morse_

_By Jerome Hogg_

 

Bixby feels as if he’s been punched in the gut, the air completely knocked out of him.

“Oh, ho,” Sylvie laughs. “You are so fucked.”

 

Well. She needn’t sound so delighted about it.

 

Bixby considers the book in the window for a moment; then he turns and continues down the walk.

“Wait a second,” Sylvie calls. “You can’t tell me you’re not at least interested?”

“No,” Bixby says.

“Don’t you want to see if you are in it? Not to mention, all the dirt that it must have on that set that was always at your Oxford parties. At the very least, now’s your chance to see who he was screwing around with. I heard they all had one another at some point.”

That stops Bixby in his tracks. “What?” he asks, bemused.

“They were staging bacchanals, for God’s sake. What do you think they were doing? Sitting around and reading Greek poetry?”

That is sort of what Bixby had thought but . . .

“What planet are you from? Sometimes, you can be so naïve.”

Then she looks at the book once more. “He sure looks like a walking target, doesn’t he? Must have been like going into a shark tank. I always knew there was something dodgy about those people. That Henry,” she says, and then she shudders melodramatically.

She gives him an assessing look. “Well," she says, "I’m going to buy a copy. I’m dying to know what they’re saying about you.”   And then she turns, disappearing into the store and leaving Bixby with no choice but to follow.

Bixby wonders if he can get out of going to this club thing with Sylvie.

Now he remembers why he and Sylvie didn’t last beyond a year. She can be annoying as hell, sometimes.

Bless her little heart.

 

In the bookshop, Bix wonders idly if there’s a book somewhere about what Sylvie had said. Agoraphobic, was it? But it feels like a betrayal, somehow. Like he’s trying to analyze Endeavour, treat him like a bug under a microscope.

And if Sylvie caught him looking up such a thing, he would never hear the end of it.

Soon, she appears out of an aisle, book in hand, laughing. “Listen to this,” she says, reading the back cover.

Bixby runs an aria through his head to tune it all out. He just doesn’t want to know.

**********************

The club is thumping with colored lights and glitz, but it all leaves Bixby cold, as cold as the gambling chip in his pocket. Sylvie’s friend’s band has no imagination whatsoever. They have a few original songs that are fairly catchy, but, mostly they play covers, including that awful song, “Jennifer Sometimes.” You would think that song would fall by the wayside, what with what happened to Nick Wilding, but the papers have been playing it up—already Nick Wilding is becoming an idol, like James Dean, and all the young rebels who live to the hilt and then die young. It's all been portrayed as terribly romantic, somehow. But it seems to Bixby like only a sad, sad waste.

 

On his way home, his favorite canary yellow Jag makes a rattling noise. He tries to remember to ask Endeavour to take a look at it when he gets home.

But then he remembers, he’s not there.

 

The only thing that _is_ there is another of those postcards, riddling words written in a spiraling circle. The final sentence actually ends with the word “the.” Who writes a sentence that ends with "the?"

Endeavour does, apparently. 

Bixby looks at the postcard and says, “Hello? hello? what the hell are you sending me these for?”

Then he tosses it on the desk with the rest of the post. 

“Speak English, why don’t you?”

 

How could he ever have hoped to have understood someone who sends postcards like that?

Then, he picks the postcard up again. He might as well check the address.

Ah. Now he’s in Ullapool. Where the hell is that? Is he, what, just wandering around? Why does his address keep changing? Does he have a place to stay? Did he get those francs? He hopes, at least, he knows how much it cost him to send a bundle of cash in the post like that.

Oh, who is he kidding? Certainly, Endeavour has misplaced it all by now, anyway.

Well, he couldn’t care less.

 

Oh, who is he kidding?

Of course, he does.

**********

It might have seemed strange, what he told the doctor—that Endeavour was not just his lover, but someone who was like a brother, father, son and best friend, too, all in one.

Well, actually it sounded very strange.

Ugh. Hmmmm. Well.

But though he had been with Sylvie for a year, he had never had that ease of feeling with her that he had found so unexpectedly with Pagan. There is something that lies beyond the skin, an affinity that is difficult to put into words, and he and Pagan had fallen into that understanding right away, just as naturally as breathing.

 

They were in the woods in Oxfordshire, lying on the leaves. Bixby felt lazy and easy, humming with satisfaction, as he lay looking up at the stars, and even Pagan, stretched out beside him, felt relaxed and post-coital, wound down finally to a point of stillness. Pagan was pressed up close against him, with one of his long legs trailing heavily across his. Bixby knew it wouldn’t be long before he got hard again, so he kept one possessive hand on Pagan's hip, tracing circles with his thumb, encouraging him to stay.

Pagan, for once, showed no inclination of leaving. He took one long narrow hand and joined it with the other, and then, turning so that he was resting his head on his hands, he looked up sideways at the sky.  

“It’s Cassiopeia,” he said, untucking one hand from under his head and reaching one sinewy arm up into the darkness, pointing out a zig zag of stars in the black sky.

Then, he told Bix how the Queen of Aethiopia had boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the sea nymphs, how she angered Poseidon, and how she now spends eternity in the sky, sitting on her proud throne. Then he told him of this constellation and that, and Bixby felt himself unwinding. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had told him such stories, not for any particular reason, just for the hell of it, just to pass the time. He felt almost as if he was back on his parents’ front porch, the air muggy and still, cicadas buzzing in the trees, listening to his great aunt and uncle rattle on into the night.

It had been a long time since he had felt that gentle warmth, that sweet sense of inclusion, the security of a love that saw you for what you really were, and accepted you for it, and not grudgingly either, but with a heart big enough for you and all of your flaws.

It made him forget, even, that he was Joss Bixby.

“Am I talking too much?” Pagan asked.  

"Hmmmm? No," Joss said. “I never knew all of those before. I only could ever find the Big Dipper.”

“The what?”

Joss pretended not to have heard.

“Joss? Which one is that? The Big Dipper?”

Well.

“That one, just there.”

Then there was the ripple of laughter like water. “That’s the Plough.”  

Bixby laughed, too. “Oh, that’s so quaint. I’ve heard people up north call it that; it must be your agricultural roots.”

“Everyone called that, I had thought,” Pagan said.

“They once did,” Bixby conceded. “But you know, the stars in that constellation look as if they are close together from our vantage point on earth, but they are rather far apart from one another. So actually, those stars are moving away from one another quite quickly, as the universe expands. It was in a journal I read. That's why they're calling it the Big Dipper, now. The shape is changing a bit." 

“Oh?” Pagan said, his forget-me-not eyes widening in confusion.

And then, he actually bought it.

It was just too easy.

It amazed him that Pagan would look at him like that, take whatever smoke and mirrors he flashed about, and believe in it. He knew that if anyone else had told Pagan such codswallop, Pagan would have given them a look that would have made them feel as if they were unworthy to breathe his air.

It made him feel like a king. 

And it made him feel like an absolute bastard.

Already, he was beginning to understand that underneath the shell of Pagan was a person who was confused enough as it was. Did he really need Bixby adding more fuel to the fire?   

****

 

That night, he can’t get to sleep—it feels as if his thoughts keep circling, inwards and inwards like the words on the postcard.

He can’t help thinking about what Sylvie said about Endeavour’s Oxford set. It’s ridiculous to think so on it; Endeavour is gone, what difference does it make, now?

But he can’t stop himself from going down the list. It’s like counting sheep, with rather the opposite effect.

Endeavour and Susan is a definite yes; he had always known that; Endeavour had told him so himself.

Endeavour and Kay a definite no—they seemed to get on so well that Bixby had asked Endeavour about her point blank.

Endeavour and Tony? Bix would set that also as a no—that little lecture Tony had given him at breakfast one morning, Bixby saw clearly for what it was—sour grapes.

Henry? …. well, maybe something could have transpired there. Sylvie did have a point. It had given Bixby pause, the oddly possessive way in which Henry looked at Pagan sometimes. But then, he did so with all of them, as if he owned them, body and soul. Which he, perhaps, thought he did.

Bruce? Ugh. That’s a repulsive thought. Bixby wishes he could unsee that right now.

Eh. Sylvie doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Sylvie can be awfully funny sometimes; It’s just her usual ridiculous gossip. . . and then Bixby is drifting off and blue-bleak embers fall and gash gold-vermilion. And Endeavour is somewhere in Scotland, walking along a cold, windy beach, and he’s walking away, his curling hair springing as he goes. Bixby is trying to follow, but Endeavour is striding along too far ahead for him to catch up.

And Endeavour is not all right—he’s already lost his coat and his hair is wild and he’s alone out in the world—and he _is_ all right, he’s fine—he’s gotten right back on his own solitary path, one that suits him just as well as any other.

And Bixby realizes that he isn’t trying to catch up to Endeavour because Endeavour needs him—in all the important ways, he’s happy enough, humming to himself and walking along the edge of the sea. But because he wants Endeavour to help _him_ , to save him from the loneliness of the deserted coast. He tries to say his name, but it’s too many syllables. “I can’t hear you,” Endeavour calls out cheerfully. And then sails off on his way.

 And then Bixby wakes.

And there is no point in denying it.  He loved Pagan and he loved Endeavour like he’ll never love anyone else.

He didn’t know Morse very well, but if he did, he would have loved him, too. Bixby couldn’t forget the determination of the sharp face he had seen in the forest of Darney. Even in his early, more dubious, days, Bixby had never considered taking part in an art heist. But if it meant that a police officer who looked like a Renaissance angel might drop from the trees and pin him to the ground, he might be tempted to give the matter some consideration.

 *******

In the morning post, there’s another of those blasted postcards. He flips it over.

 

Are you home? Love, E.

 

Are you home? What? Was he actually supposed to be answering these things?

How could he answer? No, he’s not home. He’s not home at all.

It was true, what he had told the doctor. Sylvie had been his lover, and they had danced, and drank and laughed at parties. And they made a perfect picture together.

But Endeavour had been more than that.  

And he was Pagan who watched for him warily amidst the trees and drug him to the ground with hard kisses, wrapping himself around him like a vine.

And he was Endeavour, his peaceful face cast in a soft glow as he untangled lights on the other side of the Christmas tree.

 And he was even Morse, hiding up in the branches, watching him as an art thief held a gun to his chest. Morse, who Bix had scarcely ever met but whom he had known instinctively to trust, even with his life.

He was the warm weight beside him that made Bixby real. And with him, every day was a holy day, just like Endeavour’s mother had told him.  

He can’t quite pin down what was different about his life with Endeavour, other than it reminded him of something from his childhood. Perhaps that was what prompted him to say what he had to DeBryn.

Bixby never had siblings—only four tiny crosses out by the live oaks toward the back of the yard, but he would imagine that, if his brothers or sisters had lived, he would have had the same, easy camaraderie of opposites with them as he had with Endeavour.  

His parents, too, had been such different people, yet they seemed to hum along together in a sphere entirely of their own. They had little enough reason to laugh, but it seemed as if they were always laughing. Come to think of it, he supposes they were laughing at him.

_“Clem, tell Joss to come pick these newspapers up. It’s a disgrace, having this all over the floor!”_

_“Oh, let the boy be, honey. He’s making a study of these things. Boy’s going to be a millionare one day, isn’t that right son?_

_“Yessir,” Joss had said, with an earnestness that sent his mother giggling._

And it was that: it was that same feeling of connection he had felt as a child, when his parents would look at him as if were a miracle. And, to them, he was a miracle; they treated him as if the sun rose and set with him, and all because he had performed the magical act that other parents might take as a given—he had stayed alive. They loved him not for what he did, but simply because he was.

And it was the same with Endeavour.  If all his businesses failed tomorrow (not that that was a remote possibility) Endeavour was the only one of the long string of his former lovers who Bix was certain would have stayed with him. And it was because, for those brief years, they were far more than lovers; they had become a family.

So why hadn’t he just told him everything, when he had the chance? If Endeavour would have stayed with him no matter where he was going, mightn’t he have not minded so much where he had been?

Might he have been willing to blink and look away?

He had stayed with him when he had thought he was an art thief, after all. He had given him plenty of wary looks from across the table, yes, but he had stayed . . .

Well.

That was all well and good.

No point in playing the Monday morning quarterback now. What’s done is done. He tossed the dice, took his chance, and lost. It happened sometimes, he supposed.

Just not usually to him.

Well.

He begins absentmindedly to rip open the other packages that have come in the post, perhaps with a little more vehemence than is necessary.

Some of these briefings about these damn anti-trust hearings are the 200 effing pages long. It’s unconscionable.

He opens a package from his law firm, glances through it, and tosses it on the desk for later.

But when he rips the next package open, he stops for a moment, confused. It’s an altogether different sort of book; a hardback with a black and white photo of a garden. And then, he recognizes it as the garden at the back of his house back in Oxfordshire. His one bad investment. He had given up on trying to sell the thing—nothing like a well-publicized suicide to bring down the value of a piece of real estate. Instead, he had been having the place completely renovated. Who had taken this photo? Who had been out to that house?  

In green letters across the photo are the words: As A Circling Bird. And at the bottom, all in lower case letters, endeavour morse.

It’s Endeavour’s new book. What the? Bix looks back at the torn envelope. It had been addressed to Endeavour. Why was he still having his mail sent here?

As a circling bird.

It’s strange. He had once stood in that very garden, mulling over how the might work things out with Pagan. Had imagined how he would be as one who stood in a garden, absolutely still with a handful of seeds and wait for . . .

   
Of course, he had never told Endeavour that. He could only imagine the look of derision he would get if Endeavour ever learned that he had thought of him so. And the look Pagan would have given him would have been absolutely alarming.

Who had taken the photo? Had Endeavour told the photographer that this was the picture he wanted? It seems impossible for it to be a coincidence.

He flips the book over. There’s a photo of Endeavour on the back, looking contrite. To the outside observer, he looks like a melancholy poet, but Bixby recognizes that chastened expression. It must have been taken during that period in which he was still in trouble for that whole “poems in the woods” debacle, before the publisher’s PR machine kicked in and turned his irresponsibility and inscrutability into a marketing ploy.

How had Tuner found him? Even Bix hadn't been able to track him down. Not that he had tried. 

Or had it been he, Endeavour, who had called Turner? He did seem to realize he was in danger of breaking his contract. Even Endeavour wasn't _that_  out of touch with the realities of business. 

Bixby sighed. It was just as he had always feared, then. Maybe the power of money really was stronger than love. 

As a circling bird. He hadn’t remembered Endeavour mentioning that as the title of his book. Well, it’s apropos enough. Endeavour thinks in long loops; the things he says sometimes seem to pop out of nowhere, but they always eventually come back to some point.

It’s just like those postcards, where the words circle and start and stop without rhyme or reason.  And perhaps they weren’t disjointed, meaningless ramblings—perhaps they were meant . . .

Bixby goes through the mess that’s accumulated on his desk and through his drawers, until he has gathered all the postcards together. Then he sits down and checks the postmark on each card, lying them down in a line, placing them in order.

 

Let me be to thee as a circling bird

who roves on rustle russet wings

and shapes in star-light 

 

departing rings, 

and speaks without a note or word.

 

Say you have found your music in a common wood, 

Finding the one name that sings

  
And every sequence of sweet strings, 

Has played out as you would it would.

 

The authentic cadence was discovered late, 

long after the last course had run,

the

 

point that makes the circles straight

the point that ends where I’ve begun.

 

 

He realizes that, all along, Endeavour has been saying just what he hoped he would say.

Sorry I left you in the middle of the airport. Can I come home now?

********

The next morning, Bixby goes into a shop in St. Brieuc—it’s really an apothecary, but it’s stocked with all sorts of odds and ends. In the window, there’s a rack of postcards, featuring artistic pictures of the village taken by some ambitious amateur photographer. 

He buys one, and on the back, he begins to write, “All right.”

But then he pauses. He had told him that before, but obviously he had been doing something to counter those words, since Endeavour didn’t believe him. The postcards Endeavour sent,  he realizes, are asking something else, too.

 

Can I come home now?

And if I do, will you just let me be?  

 

But what is Bix to say? He’s no good at this sort of thing.

Then it comes to him. The coded words once written on the bottom of a ransom note. It’s a bit of plagiarism, but Endeavour, he is sure, will forgive him that. And so he writes:

_Forgive my cross words. Love, J._

He drops it off in the post, but he supposes his postcard must have missed him, either literally or figuratively, because he never hears an answer.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to let you all know: I wasn't quite sure how to rate this.... there is a section of this chapter I would set at "E," but, since this fic has grown so long, it seemed odd to rate the whole thing E just for a few paragraphs.... 
> 
> So, instead, I just thought I'd give this little warning at the beginning of the chapter, that that's coming up. .. .(or an attempt at it, anyway :0)  
> Thanks!

 

Bixby looks in the mirror hanging in the hall and smooths his hair. 

Not bad. Not bad at all. 

What a waste it all seems like now, all those nights he spent sitting around the house with Endeavour. It had gotten to the point that, as soon as he had come home, he would simply pour himself a Scotch and collapse on the sofa. And Endeavour would already be stretched out on the carpet, listening to those histrionic records. And then he'd look up at him, all big eyes and lopsided grin, and he'd reach up and thread the fingers of one hand through his, and pull him down off the couch and . . . 

Oh, hell. 

Well, the glass is always half full, Bix, he tells himself. Tonight he's off to a party at a country house outside Paris, and he'll go and mingle and laugh and dance, and he'll be the heart and soul of the party and he won't have to hug the wall because he won't have . . . 

Ah. Well. 

*******

 

“My God you are useless,” Sylvie says.

“Thank you, my dear.”

Sylvie lies down and stretches herself out alongside him with an air of someone who has just walked across the desert.

“Absolutely useless.”

Bixby puts a hand to his forehead. “I’m just drunk, that’s all.”

“I’ve never known you to be _this_ drunk,” she says. She turns her head, considering him. “It’s that bender. He’s ruined you.”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Why not?” she asks. “That’s what he is, isn’t he?”

Bixby frowns. “Well then what would you call me, I wonder?”

“Of course, you aren’t a bender. You’ve just been seduced.”

Bixby laughs out loud at this.

“What?” Sylvie asks.

Bixby just shakes his head.  He can’t help but smile at the idea of his awkward, blushing-red-to-the-ears Endeavor “seducing” anyone. Endeavour, whose idea of a slow burn resembled nothing so much as being tackled by Jackson High’s 230-pound linebacker Tank Creekmore. 

 

Coming to the party had been a mistake. It was too arty of a crowd, for one thing. He was sick to death of the Endeavour look-alikes he saw walking along the streets of Paris; he didn’t much enjoy seeing the two or three of them here, at a party so much like the one where he had first met Pagan in Oxfordshire.  It was like one of his nightmares. Each time he saw one, he would think, just for a moment, that it was Endeavour … but then, the man would turn around or even simply reach for a drink, and Bix would know that he was all wrong. None of them had Endeavour's slender waist or tight arse, none of them had hair the color of the woods in autumn, and certainly none of them had huge blue eyes that looked right through your mask and found you worthwhile anyway.

“Are you listening to me?” Sylvie asks.

“Hmmmm?”

Sylvie rolls her eyes and laughs warmly. “Well,” she says, “you could always try tying me up. I never knew you were into that sort of thing.”

“What?” Bixby asks, bemused. “Where did you get that? Who says I am?"

“That book,” she replies. “Some guy who was in that band you all used to get together with said that you were into bondage or something. That you had Endeavour tied up in a car." She grimaces. "I’m surprised Endeavour wouldn’t mind that sort of thing. Him having been in prison and all. I mean . . .”

 

Oh, no, Sylive. No, no, no, Bixby thinks. He had never even discussed that with Endeavour in three years; he certainly wasn’t about to betray him by gossiping with Sylvie about any of that.

 

But this gets him thinking of something that has troubled him beyond anything else. That day at the airport. Sometimes, Bixby is sure that he simply pushed Endeavour away. And rightly so. Two men exchanging a passionate kiss in the midst of a bustling airport? Even Endeavour knew that simply wasn’t done.

Sometimes, though, when he replays the scene in his mind, he thinks that maybe he shook Endeavour away more forcefully than he had intended. It makes him feel slightly sick, to think that, after all those years of watchfulness, in his last moments with Endeavour, he had lost his patience like that.

 He wishes he could watch the exchange from the sidelines, make the call more accurately. Because it did seem as if he remembered Endeavour’s head snapping forward a bit, curls flying out with the motion, and how could that be if he hadn’t shoved him fairly hardly? . . . Or had Endeavour simply been off balance to begin with? Endeavour was a few inches shorter, had to tilt slightly up when they kissed . . .

He hopes that’s all it was. It has to be. If it was otherwise, then he knows, he’ll never come back.

But he hadn’t come back, so . . .

 

“I don’t really want to talk about that ruddy book, to tell you the truth. I’d like nothing better than to forget all about the thing.”

“All right.  What do you want to talk about?" Sylvie asks. 

“I don’t know,” he muses. “What do you think about the moons of Saturn?”

“What about them?” 

“You know they are discovering more and more of them all the time," Bix says. "What’s the count up to now? What do you think they’ve been doing all of these years, so far away, nobody even knowing they existed?”

She cuts him a look. “Orbiting Saturn, presumably.”

 

Ugh. That’s just what Bruce Belborough had said. Bixby suddenly feels as if he’s being doused with cold water.

He sighs and stares back at the ceiling. He really has been drinking too much.

That wretched, wretched book. Who from the Wildwood said that rubbish? Oh, well, he supposed whoever it was needed the money, now that the band was defunct. And who was this Jerome Hogg? He’s never heard Endeavour mention such a person.

One thing is for sure. There better not be anything about that stolen painting in there. As much money as he paid to keep that whole disaster quiet? If he hears a whiff of that mentioned, heads will roll. And then he really won’t be any better than Susan Winter. In fact, he’ll be worse, because the murder would be premedita . . . 

 

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“Hmmmm?”

"I was telling you about that book. You really should  . . . "

 

And Susan had been right to have cut him loose. It was impossible to live up to Endeavour's ideals. Bixby had just been fooling himself all along. 

Of, course, he hadn't killed anyone in a bacchanalian frenzy, there was that. And, actually, now that he thought about it . . . perhaps he had missed a golden opportunity. After all, Endeavour had been on quite the roll of late, hadn't he? Stealing his bag out of evidence, commandeering a police car. When you put it that way, Endeavour might now have the worse record between them. Bixby's might be rather more extensive, but the people he had allegedly "wronged" had wronged him far worse, had got just what they had coming. He certainly never was brazen enough to have messed about with the police . . . 

 

 “Well, I wish I could say this was fun. My God, you’ve been a pill. Why don’t you go and look for him, if you’re so cut up about it?  It’s not like you to mope like this.” She pauses and frowns. “You really ought to, you know.”

“Ought to what?”

“Go and look for him, if that’s how you feel. Actually, this might sound strange, but I’m starting to think he was good for you. He made you seem, I don’t know, more like a real person.”

Bixby stills at this. “What do you mean by that? A _real person_?”

“I don’t know. You used to be such a shallow bastard. You’ve got more, well, gravitas now, I suppose.”

“Hmmmm,” Bixby says again. “Well. That’s all very well. But I don’t even know where he is." He closes his eyes. "No,” he says. “All that’s over.”

Sylvie scrutinizes his face for a moment and then slaps him lightly on the arm. “Well, then, cheer up, for God’s sakes. Stop mooning around. It doesn’t suit you.”

 “I suppose you’re right,” Bixby says. “Sorry." He sighs again, as if considering something. "Well. I best be getting back. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be right as rain.”

“That’s the spirit,” she says. “Maybe I’ll stop by after this lot is either gone or too drunk to care that I’ve gone. See if you’re _up_ to anything."

“Ha ha, my dear.”

 

She gets up and shimmies back into her dress in one fluid motion. He had forgotten how she could do that.

And then, blessedly, she’s gone.

Bix stares up at the ceiling. He can hear the rumble of conversation and strains of music from the party downstairs, but this room is dark and quiet and peaceful. Bix closes his eyes, and the words pop into his mind.

_I have been faithful to thee, Endeavour, in my fashion._

Ah. Look at that. His name even makes scansion.

 

And how does he even know that?

****

Bix walks out into the cool autumn night. The stars are crisp and bright in the black sky above him, but he can’t even look at them without seeing all of the constellations of Greek heroes and heroines and mythical animals that Endeavour told him about on that long ago night in the woods. 

 He chances a quick glance up, and it leaps out at him amidst the tangle of lights: The Big Dipper.

_“Joss? Which one is that? The Big Dipper?”_

He feels a lump form in his throat.

But he still can’t help but smile at the memory of his know-it-all Pagan, eyes blue and wide in the the throes of confusion.  

Ah, well.

I’m sorry, Endeavour.

 

In penance, Bixby clicks on the radio and turns the dial until he finds a station playing opera. He can almost imagine that Endeavour is there next to him, humming along. "God, I'm so glad we're getting out of there," he'd say. 

And it's almost as if he can really hear him. 

And Bix is drunk and he’s maudlin and he can scarcely get the car into gear.

He sits back and takes deep breaths, feeling the burn in his lungs from the chill of the cold autumn night. He just needs to clear his head, that's all. 

He never should have come out to this blasted party. Try as he might, he’s just not the same.

And somehow, he can’t get that poem out of his head. How has he picked these things up, anyway? Why did he have to notice that his name fits with the meter of the blasted thing?

 

As he drives down the deserted back road toward Nancy, the words keep circling through his head.

 

_I cried for madder music and for stronger wine, but when the feast is finished and the lamps expire, there falls thy shadow, Endeavour, the night is thine. And I am desolate and sick of an old passion and . . ._

 

. . . and if only the shadows didn’t have to be quite so substantial.

For there’s one right now, one of those goddamned little look-alikes walking out along the road, even here, in the middle of nowhere—the curling hair, the jumper vest, all after the style of Endeavour. How long is he expected to go on before this fad passes?  Look at that. It must be near to freezing, and he isn’t even wearing a coat. Look at me, I’m so whimsically eccentric, I'm so ethereal that I'm oblivious to the elements. 

Bixby ought to run him right off the road.

He guns the engine and streaks off the road and into the grass, barreling right at the little bastard. The man whips his head around, freezes for a moment, and then leaps down into the embankment like a deer flying off out of the beam of the headlights, into he darkness.  Bix turns the wheel sharply, turning the car straight again, and hurdles off into the night.

In the rearview mirror, Bix can see the man emerge from the trees. He's watching him. He can practically feel the anger emanating out of him.

Too damn bad. Get your own look, you hateful little sod.

Stop haunting me.

 

***

When Bixby gets home, he heads into the drawing room and pours himself a drink. Then he has another.

Then, somehow, he stumbles up the stairs, strips off his rumpled evening suit, and collapses into bed. He hits the mattress with such a heavy thump, that one of the fir cones on Endeavour’s bed stand rolls off and lands softly on the carpet.

He closes his eyes and the world goes black.

*****

Somewhere, in the hazy fog in the back of his mind, he registers an odd noise. There are footsteps on the stairs.

Oh, no.

Is Sylvie actually making good on her promise? Has she really dragged herself all the way out here? He would have thought she would have had more pride then that.  

“You bastard,” she says. “I didn’t expect you to stop and give me a lift, but you needn’t have run me off the road.”

“Wha?”  Bixby mumbles into the pillow.

Then, Sylvie crashes beside him in a very un-Sylive-like, graceless heap. And then, right away, she's breathing deeply and evenly, as if she has immediately fallen asleep. 

Bixby slowly manages to open his eyes, and then half, sits up, turning to look at the space beside him. On the pillow next to his is is a head of unkempt curls, dulled gold and bronze in the darkness, carrying a bright scent of leaves.

“Endeavour?”

Endeavour turns his head sleepily and looks at him as if he’s been there all along, as if he’s just come in from the sitting room after driving him nuts for an hour on his typewriter. 

Bixby sits up and traces a thumb along Endeavour’s cheekbone, pushing back a stray gold spiral. His face is like ice. Is he real? Perhaps he is . . . after all, his dream Endeavour would not be regarding him with a faint crease between his eyes, as if he doesn’t understand why Bixby is looking at him as if he’s a ghost.

And then Bixby leans down and kisses him, and the big blue eyes slide shut, and two narrow hands come up to cradle his head, and Endeavour is kissing him back, each kiss slow and deep and warm. Bixby feels as if his whole body is unwinding. It can’t be. Can it be? Can it be this easy?

"Is it really you?" 

"Yes," Endeavour says, looking slightly fearful, as if he doesn’t know what Bixby is on about.

"Was that . . . was that you on the road?" 

Endeavour scowls, as cross as two sticks. "Yes, of course, who'd you think it was?" 

"Oh, God," Bixby breathes. "I'm sorry. I thought it was one of those look-alikes. I've been seeing them everywhere . . . and . . . "

"Oh," Endeavour says, his scowl fading. "I wondered if you noticed those. I thought I was going mad when I first saw all those people out at the lake house." Then a faint line forms between his eyes and he says,"You shouldn’t do things like that, you know. You think it’s a joke, but it isn’t. You're lucky it was me. Someone who didn't know your brand of theatre would have been terrified half to death.”

His brand of theatre? This, from someone who sleeps outside to guard finches and who drops out of trees to pin art thieves to the ground?

He's about to make the joke, when he realizes that Endeavour is regarding him with a strangely determined expression on his face. "Why didn't you ever answer any of my postcards? I thought you had told me to send them. Wasn't that right? I couldn't remember." 

"What?" Bixby asks. And then he remembers: _"You'll send me a postcard, won't you? Let me know how you're getting on . . . . "_

"Yes, I did," Bixby says. "That's right." What to answer? I didn't understand what you were talking about, why did you write them in circles? In the end, he says, "I suppose I didn't know what to say."

"Oh," Endeavour says, stretching and burrowing into his pillow. 

 

Was that an acceptable enough answer? 

 

Bix slides back down and brushes his hand along Endeavour's cheek again; his cheekbone is sharper than he remembers it. His hair is a bit wilder than usual, too. He certainly looks the worse for wear.

He's considering this, when he notices that Endeavour is watching him as if he's awaiting judgment. So Bixby smiles and Endeavour seems to relax again, looking reassured.

Then Bix leans in to kiss him again, and Endeavour is kissing him back, running his hands up through his hair; then he wraps his hands around Endeavour's waist, and he’s like ice and he's all long lines and austere grace, and Bixby takes the bottom of his shirt and pulls it up and off, over his head, tossing it to the floor.

Then, he brings him forward again, and Endeavour’s chest is cold, but it's solid against his; he can feel the coarseness of the sparse golden hair of this chest rubbing up against his skin, and it’s this detail that makes him realize: it’s true. He’s here. And their mouths meet in firm, warm, sliding kisses that can't be a dream. 

He brushes his hands down along his ribs, and he can feel each one, but he’s not stupid enough to say anything about it. For so many weeks there has been just a blank, empty space beside him. The contrast is almost impossible. Endeavour could come back with his face painted blue, spouting something in Anglo-Saxon, and Bixby would not say a word.

Especially now, with Endeavour’s warming hand running in a smooth plane down his chest and then down and down, cupping a sure, steady hand over his length, pressing firmly and rocking it against him in gentle, tantalizing strokes, until Bixby can’t help but let out a groan between kisses.

This prompts a soft laugh from Endeavour, and he’s rolling Bixby’s shorts down, brushing over his thighs as he goes, and then he’s pulling them off at his ankles, sitting up and tossing them away. And then for a moment, there is that old coldness again, and Bixby wonders if maybe he's imagined it all. 

But then, Endeavour is back, warm and solid against him, pressing his arousal up against his and arching his back so that he rocks gently into him.

And it’s been so long, so, endlessly long, that Bixby isn’t sure if he can bear such gentle, slow, delicate strokes. So he reaches down and gathers their lengths in one hand and begins pumping erratically, his breath coming into sharp bursts between greedy kisses. Endeavour laughs again and moves Bix's hand away, replacing it with his own narrower, surer one, and Bixby lets himself go, lost only to the feel of that hand, pumping him, rolling down to the root and back up to the head, sliding a soft thumb across the slit on each stroke.

Once he’s got a rhythm down that has Bixby panting heavily against this throat, Endeavour begins rolling his hips, moving his length alongside of his within the circle of his moving hand. 

And with one final soft, decisive press of Endeavour’s thumb, Bixby spasms, and then he is coming and coming endlessly against him. The slide of Endeavour’s hand is suddenly easier, and in the next moment, Endeavour goes tense and shudders, coming with a soft gasp and collapsing on his shoulder. 

 

And as he steadies his breath, Bixby pulls Endeavour to him, so that his forehead is resting against his. Endeavour takes his hand, threading his fingers through his, and holds it up to his chest. 

For a long time, they simply lie there, and Bix says nothing. He’s afraid almost to talk, lest he finds this is just another strange dream, lest Endeavor answers, "I can't hear you." 

 

But then Endeavour breaks the silence for him.

 

“Is it really all right, then?” he asks.

“Yes,” Bixby says.

But an anxious look settles across Endeavour's face. “You should know, that . . . well.”  He takes a deep breath. “I really didn’t have that easy a time. I mean I . . .” he drifts off and goes quiet.

Bixby can sort of see that for himself. Well, what does that matter?  It seems like he did well enough. He must have gotten things settled with Turner. He got his book out on time, even, it would seem. And he’s managed to get back here. And after all . . .

“I didn’t have any easy time without you, either.”

Endeavour looks at him skeptically.  And Bixby knows he should say it. Everything felt meaningless with you gone. I’ve never been so desolate and low and I’ve been actually getting into a spot of trouble but don’t worry and I just didn’t feel like myself without you…. And I love you and . . . don't make me go back to how I had to live before I found you and . . . 

But instead, he smiles his closed-lip Bixby smile and says, “It was rather dull around here without you, old man.”

Endeavour smiles back and lays his head back down, looking slightly perplexed, as if he’s not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

And so Bixby pulls him back to him.  “I missed you every day,” he says. “I missed you more than words can say.” 

 And then he kisses him, and again, it’s like coming to life after a long, dark sleep. The whole world is a different place with Endeavour at his side.

Bix runs his hands down Endeavour’s back and buries his face in his throat, kissing up to his jawline while soft curls that smell like leaves brush across his face. And he takes a deep breath, as if he could inhale him.

And Endeavour is solid and real and fits perfectly within his arms.

He nestles his face back near the hollow of Endeavour's throat and plants kisses there, listening for the hitch in his breath that he knows will come as he dips his hands lower, down his back and along the top of the curve of his arse. As soon as he hears it, he cups Endeavour’s arse into his broad hands and pulls him up and forward, and Endeavour rolls along with the movement, sending one long leg out across the top of his.

Bix strokes his fingertips down along the cleft of his arse and Endeavour shudders against him, and, suddenly, he’s limp and pliant and completely his.

Then, Endeavour reaches forward, wipes his hand through the mess on his stomach, and, with a soft, slickened fist, slowly begins pumping Bixby’s cock. And this time, Bix can tell he has another purpose in mind other than getting him off as soon as possible. Bix feels himself harden further under his touch, and Endeavour moans appreciatively, as if he’s already thinking of the feel of his cock inside him.

And Bix smiles to himself—he still has it, the magic. It’s been months, but he remembers well the steady rhythm that puts that dazed look on Endeavour’s face, the one that tells him that the snowstorm is finally quelled, that he’s the only thing Endeavour is thinking of.  He rolls over to the bedside table, half pulling Endeavour with him, and reaches for a tube of lubricant. 

He slicks his fingers, and works one into him, rocking steadiy, and then another, until Endeavour is gasping against him. And soon, he’s lining himself up and easing and then stroking into him, and he feels he could keep this pace forever, it's all just as he had imagined again and again, the tight feel of him around him, the blissful, unfocused look in the luminous eyes he had seen so long ago at that party . . .

And then Endeavour’s eyes widen, and he throws his arms around him and shudders, his body contracting against Bixby’s cock, and he’s warm and tight, and suddenly he’s incredibly slick too, and Bixby is coming and coming and . . .

And as Bixby collapses on top of him, Endeavour swings his legs back around him and crosses them over his arse, rocking his hips in a way that draws a final wave of pleasure from his softening cock. Bixby groans and buries his face again in the crook of Endeavour’s neck, nuzzling his hair against his face.

He lies there and breathes the scent of leaves and revels in the real warm weight beneath him.  And suddenly, the world is as it should be again.

 

********

And suddenly, the world is white with morning light. And he’s lying next to an empty space. And his head is aching.

Oh, God.

Did he have some sort of drunken dream? He had been so sure that it was real.

He gets up and takes up his trousers from the floor, putting them on as he walks to the door.

“Endeavour?” he calls.

 But there’s no answer.

He’s on his way out into the sitting room, but then he notices that the bathroom’s all steamed up. He looks inside, and finds rumpled clothes strewn on the floor. And a pair of shoes, one size smaller than his, the bottoms worn totally through, so that he can see the tile of the floor beneath them.

And then, there’s another memory from the night before. Of a man walking along the road. _Was_ that Endeavour, then? What had he been doing? Where had he come from, to get his shoes into a state like this? They look like the shoes of some vagabond.

Oh, God, please let it be him, Bixby thinks. Please tell me I didn’t pick up some look-alike stranger. 

He knows it's irrational, but the night feels like such a blur, that he can't help but feel a surge of panic. 

There was just something almost surreal about the night. It seemed almost impossible that after all that had passed, that Endeavour would just come back, fall into his bed and into his arms as if nothing had happened. That they should pick up right where they left off, no questions asked. 

It was almost too easy. 

Could it really be that easy?

But then, he notices a curl on the counter, as if someone has been cutting his hair. He holds it up to the light, and it’s threaded with golds and coppers and bronzes and . . .

He must be back.

“Endeavour?”

He’s halfway down the stairs when he begins to hear the strains of an opera record. He runs down the rest of the staircase and into the drawing room.

 

And he’s there, stretched out on the carpet, in the slanting light of the window. His hair is red gold in the sun and he’s wearing a soft-green jumper vest and tie, the color that shifts his eyes to aquamarine, to the color of the Gulf of Mexico. Endeavour looks up at him and smiles.

“You look like a pirate,” he says. Bixby looks down at himself—he’s bare chested, having thrown on only his black evening suit trousers—then, he rubs a thoughtful hand across his face. He’d been careless about shaving of late, and he’s developed something in between a trim beard and a heavy stubble. He laughs at Endeavour’s assessment.

And it must not be a bad look on him . .  . because already Endeavour is sitting up, taking his hand and then leaning back, drawing him back down to lie on the carpet beside him.

He's about to follow, when the record ends, the needle humming against the inner label. He turns to put the record back to the start again. He knows Endeavour always takes such care with the things. 

But surprisingly, Endeavour keeps his hand in his, pulling him back. "Just leave it," he says. "This is the space between the songs." 

Bixby has no idea what he's talking about, but Endeavour tugs his hand again, and so Bixby complies, settling himself on the carpet alongside him. He turns his head and looks him over in the bright, morning light. He hadn’t forgotten the sharpness of the ribs he had felt last night. And those shoes . . . what the hell? Had he been all right?

Bixby scrutinizes his face for clues.

With his hair wild in the morning sun and a mouth flushed from kissing, he’s a thoroughly debauched Pagan. But the peace in his eyes and in his smile is all Endeavour.

But then, Endeavour looks over at him, and there is a twist of something else, a determination in the eyes and a stubborn set of his chin, and, suddenly, Endeavour is rolling Bixby on his back and straddling him. Endeavour sets his hands onto Bix’s upper arms and then slowly slides them down, so that he’s holding Bixby’s wrists, pinning his hands down over his head and to the floor.

What the . . . ?

He’s watching Bix with an oddly intent look on his face. Then he widens his eyes and says, with a melodramatic air, “I want to see what’s beyond the door.”

Well damn.

If there is anything beyond the door, Bixby is fairly certain he saw it last night. But he’s more than willing to see what Endeavour has in mind.

Then Endeavour is slowly leaning forward, lowering his mouth to his, and Bixby thinks that he’s aiming for a kiss, but at the last moment, he turns his face, so that his curls are rubbing and catching at the stubble on his face. He sets a warm mouth by his ear, and whispers, “What’s your name, baby?”

Oh.

And the jest is right there, it’s right on the tip of his tongue . . .

Josephine.  

 

But as Endeavour raises himself up, still straddling him, still pinning his hands to the floor, his blue eyes are solemn and expectant.

And so he simply says, “It’s Joss.”

Endeavour turns his face and looks at him sideways, as if he thinks he’s putting one over on him still.

“It is,” Joss assures him.

“Joss,” he says, as if to confirm it. “Joseph?” 

“No,” Joss says.

Endeavour says nothing, just continues to watch him steadily.

Joss sighs.

“Josiah,” he says.  

“Josiah?” Endeavour asks wonderingly.

 

Joss shrugs. Well, it is pretty bad, he thinks,  but . . . hey, it’s not Endeavour.

 

But Endeavour is already moving on. “Joss what?”

“Taylor.”

Endeavour laughs at this. “My, how perfectly ordinary.”

“Thanks,” Joss says.

“Josiah?” Endeavour repeats, a hint of wonderment in his voice.

Joss shrugs again. “My mother always said I was named for the righteous king of Judah. She was pretty religious. She spent about a quarter of her life down at Tree of Deliverance Church, it seemed. 

“Tree of Deliverance?” Endeavour asks. “I never heard of a church like that anywhere in Oxford.”

Joss smiles. “Well, It’s rather outside Oxford, old man.”

Endeavour narrows his eyes at him.

“Well….” Joss clarifies. “ . . . rather outside Oxford, Mississippi.”

And then Endeavour is laughing, and it’s like the sound of water lapping against the dock in Oxfordshire.

 

Well, what was to be expected? There’s nothing that makes a know-it-all happier than finding out he’s been right all along.

 

“So Bixby, then. Gatsby?” Endeavour asks.

“Trey Bixton gave me my first break so to speak. Long story. But yeah.”

“Yeah?” Endeavour asks, clearly delighted with the slip. Then he frowns. “Why on earth would you take such a book as a guide? You _do_ know the man gets shot, don’t you? You have read that book to the end, I hope.”

“Yes, I’ve read it to the end,” Joss says. “I don’t simply blindly follow the thing. I’ve learned from his mistakes, too. Jay Gatsby had a great vision. He just made one crucial lapse in judgment, that’s all.”

Endeavour laughs. “Oh? What was that, then?”

“He fell in love with the wrong person, didn’t he? Daisy never appreciated Gatsby's ideals, she was too afraid of everything. Just wanted to stay safely tucked away with her safe little posh set.”  

Endeavour looks at him uncertainly. "Yes, but, well, I’m .... afraid of everything . . . “

“Oh, please,” Joss says. “You’re nothing like those conformist little cowards in East Egg. You’ve started over again and again. You just step out of one life and into another. Sure, sometimes you might be afraid to go somewhere, but if you’re needed, you go anyway. And, now, somehow you’ve gotten all the way back here to me. You’re the bravest person I know, really.”  

A blush of red spreads over his face, and Endeavour looks down.

 

Ah. Well. After-comers cannot guess the beauty been, I suppose, is what he still thinks. But that’s all right, then.

 

“So, old man. If it’s all the same,” Joss says, bracingly. “Maybe we can, you know, just keep this between you and me, all right?

“Why?” Endeavour asks.

 

Well, of course he was going to ask why.

 

“Are you wanted in seven states?” Endeavour asks, a quirk of a smile back in place.  

Joss winces. “No,” he says. Then he adds . . . “Just two.”

Endeavour looks dumbfounded for a moment, then he's scrutinizing him to see whether or not he’s joking; Joss finds it a struggle to keep his expression neutral.

“For what?”

“Theft, allegedly. But I didn’t take anything that wasn’t rightfully mine. I got Shanghai’ed, you could say. And I didn’t put up with it, that’s all. Pretty much, anyway.”

“ _Pretty much?_ So, what’s this, then, some sort of rough justice?” Endeavour asks, skeptically. “You make it all sound terribly romantic.”

 “If you want all of the details, I’m sure you could look into it. Oxford, Mississippi, 1954, New York City, 1955. Josiah Taylor is not the most uncommon name, I know, but May 22, 1935 is my real birthdate, so that should help you, you know, track down the records or however it is that works. I’ve no idea. But you do, I’m sure.”

Endeavour looks at him, and it’s the same way he looked at that painting years and years ago at the party at Oxfordshire.

“I don’t know,” Endeavour says, finally. “Maybe I will. Or maybe I won’t. I’ve been told I’m a fairly poor policeman.”

“That may be so, I suppose.” Joss says. "I did hear that you stole a police car. Puts us on a bit of an equal footing, doesn't it, when you think about it?" 

Endeavour's eyes widen at that. "I was just acting automatically . . . I didn't think . . . "

"Yes, a pretty poor policeman, I'd have to say," Joss laughs. Then he adds, “But you’re a pretty good detective.”

 

And it’s the right thing to say...

 

Because Endeavour leans forward again, and this time he comes down for a kiss, a kiss as warm and light and golden as the Mississippi sun.

 

. . . And he’s Josiah Taylor, and he’s walking out of the front door, looking over fields and a sky as big as his dreams.

And there’s Joss Bixby, standing there by a live oak, dressed in an evening suit. He turns and smiles a bright, white smile, flipping a gold gambling chip.

But it’s not a goodbye. He’ll still need Bixby. Just not right now.

And that’s fine, then.

Bixby is all right.

He’s actually grown quite fond of the chap.

After all, it was true what Bixby had told him.

Whoever would have thought that scrappy Josiah Taylor, Clem and Grace’s boy,  a hero on the football field, a disaster in the classroom, the life of the party who could always be counted on to produce a bottle of bourbon in a dry county, a field hand from Mississippi who jumped a north-bound train, a groundskeeper at Harvard who lingered perhaps overlong at trimming bushes before open classroom windows, a con artist, a gambler, a dissembler and an all-out fraud —through a ready smile and a knack at seeing the patterns in the numbers that others overlooked—could have ever found himself here, lying on a thick Persian carpet in a French chateau, being thoroughly kissed by the probable future poet laureate of England?

In a life like this, Bixby had told him, anything is possible.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left kudos! This was my first fanfic, and I never imagined it would end up so . . . long. It was a lot of fun.  
> I'd still like to write a one-shot or two featuring this duo. And I sort of like the idea of a case-fic, where Endeavour, Strange, Fancy and Trewlove work together on a case. Sort of like the Breakfast Club meets Thames Valley CID. And then Bixby, with his shady past and dubious connections, offers to go undercover, and Endeavour goes all Thursday and "hat stand, Bix!" about it. :0) 
> 
> Anyway, thank you all again for reading!


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